Went to a 416 property auction...

[David Krulac]

No phone or internet or pre-auction bidding permitted.  Needed 100% of purchase price on the spot to be paid in full within 10 minutes.  Rules of the auction no cash, and no personal checks.  Preferred payment was certified funds.  Many bidders came with a stack of certified checks of varying amounts.  If you gave the auction more than your auction bill, they made change by sending you a check in the mail (not sure if it was certified or not) 

We ended up at the end of the day buying more properties than anybody else at the auction.  There was feverish bidding and there was competition from other bidders that were both well informed and well funded.  Some of the bidders of the bidders were familiar faces, but there was a significant number of bidders that were new to me.  Some bidders clearly came for one property and after that property was offered they went home.  

As the auction prices ascended the auctioneer had this habit of increasing the bid spreads, from $1,000, to $5,000 to $10,000 etc.  I had to reign him in from jumping the bid increments a couple of times.  I talked about in the book about ME jumping the bid to throw off other bidders, but when the auctioneer does it, it defuses my technique.

All and all it was a lot of prep work, doing title searches and visiting so many properties.  And that was only one of the several such sales that I attended in the last few weeks.

There is also always an interesting mix of properties.  This sale bought houses, apartments, lots, land and even a car dealership.  (I bought mine first, then Warren Buffet bought his, just for the record.)  And one year even bought an abattoir.  (not an albacore).