On the block

We tried to buy a house today. And failed.

Backstory: We’ve been looking for a few weeks. Early in the search, we saw this house was going to be sold at auction on Jan. 31. Disregarded it because the pictures on the internet made it look like a project (which we don’t want) and the “AUCTION!” sort of scared me away. Buying a first house is hard enough. Throw in the fact that we had to come up with OUR OWN a price for the place? A little too much to handle.

So we forgot about it until last weekend’s open house. After seeing the remodeled interior and falling in love with the quirky floorplan (and the fact that it was GREEN), we hurriedly got pre-approved for a loan and filed the paper work this week to register as bidders, fully expecting the OPENING bid would be more than we could afford. But we told ourselves to go, just in case no one else was there. (“Sure it sold for $180,000 just six months ago, but what if we’re the only ones. We could get a house for 50 bucks!”)

Auction time: Saturday, 4 p.m.

We showed up about 3:30, thinking we’d stroll through the house again — to make sure we still liked it — and to scope out the competition.

“Look, THEY’RE here again. We saw them at the open house.”
“They’re young like us. We can outbid those two.”
“Uh oh, that guy’s in a suit. He means business.”

Getting there early was our first mistake. By four o’clock, as the auction guy is pulling out the megaphone, after Raquel (our agent) and my parents showed up and the house had filled with people (“Are they bidders or just curious neighbors?”), both Steph and I were nervous enough to puke.

The auction guy read through all the details about the place and before we knew it, he switched gears and was talking faster than that guy from the Micro Machines commercial. (Who knew that modern auctions still used a fast talking cowboy, just like in the movies?! We decided later that the speed-talking is a trick that adds some fake urgency to the proceedings to pressure the buyers.)

“DoIhear175,000thousand?175,175,175whowantstobuyahousetodayfolks?”

Not a single response. Everyone is just standing there stone-faced. I think to myself, “Well, there you have it. $175 for the starting bid. We can’t afford this place.” The pressure was off.

“How about $160,000?”

No takers. Again, to myself: “Hmm. 160, eh? Now I’m intrigued…”

“130,000?”

Silence.

The guy finally got a bite at $125,000. The battle was on.

After a big gulp, I raised my hand, holding the piece of paper with our registration number on it. “$130,000.” You know that rush you get when you submit a bid on eBay and see the page that says “You are the high bidder”? Now imagine the item you’re bidding on is a freaking HOUSE. Holy crap.

Back and forth we went. A couple thousand at a time. But here’s the thing — our low expectations for the auction disappeared pretty quickly when we realized no one else was bidding. Just us and “pink sweater lady.”

Someone else (“the guy at the back”) finally jumped in with a bid of $147,500. We bid 148. Pink Sweater says 149. I looked at Steph. “Well, here’s our last stand. Let’s just get it over with.”

I raised my hand again. “150,000.”

And then a funny thing happened. It got quiet. No more bids.

“Comeonfolks,howabout151?DoIhear151?151,151,151.Anybodygonnagofor151?”

Nothing.

The auctioneer could tell that Pink Sweater and her husband couldn’t go much higher and were struggling with the decision. And that is a BRUTAL feeling. The idea that you could lose the house you really love because you weren’t willing to spend an extra 500 bucks.

She calls out a bid: “One hundred fifty thousand and one dollar.”

I could have punched her.

Luckily, Auction Guy wasn’t having it. “I’m not going to accept bids of that small increment. But since we never announced a minimum bid increase, how about we take a five minute intermission and let everyone think it over.”

Deep breath. Deep breath. Dad leans in, “Are you guys in the lead?!”

We talked it over for a couple minutes, deciding that we truly had reached our limit. We loved the house, but we couldn’t go on bidding forever and the couple small problems with the place were enough that we could walk away without extreme regret.

And just like that, we came back from intermission and it was over. Pink Sweater bid $151,000. And a second later, Guy From the Back topped her with 152,500. After a couple more attempts by the auctioneer to get us back into the bidding … “Sold to the gentleman in the back for $152,500. Congratulations.”

———–

We stood our ground and stuck with our original bid ceiling, but we couldn’t help feeling a little regret walking away from the house. And hearing from the guy that he was going to rent it to college kids made the defeat a little tougher to swallow, but everyone was convinced that he had much deeper pockets than he let on, and a bidding war with him was a battle we weren’t going to win. One man’s dream house is another man’s investment property, I guess.

So we’re back to square one. A little sad and our nerves are shot, but we’re a little smarter about the process of buying a house, too.