House Flip Tips For Auctions

by James Mikel

What I learned. Don't continue to bid on a property at auction.com when the reserve isn't met.

A house we were eye balling was up on the auction block. Five minutes to go and we were the high bidder at $18,000 with the reserve not being met. Another person bid $19,000. We bid $20. Reserve was still not met so we bid again and then again and then one last time to see if we could get above the reserve. The required bidding was in $1,000 increments. So at $23,000 we stopped and chalked it up to experience. 40 minutes later we got a call saying we were the successful high bidder. I believe they would have accepted the lesser bid but who knows. Because we were paying cash, the property closed in about 10 days.