“The original auction brochure listed 29 units to be open for inspection.  On Saturday, only ten were listed as being offered for sale that day.  I did not ask why so many were excluded.  I presumed that it was because each bidder that went through the registration process in the days prior to the event was asked which units they were interested in – and that the excluded units had insufficient interest during the inspection process.  One other change was that the first two units offered would start with a minimum bid of $295,000 and would be sold to the highest bidder.  The eight remaining units would be sold subject to seller approval of the high bid.  My opinion is that many bidders do not fully understand this provision in that even if they are the high bidder, the seller can come back within a stated time period and say no thanks.  (Editor’s note: the “reserve”.) The brochure clearly states this, but most people think the high bid gets the property.

An interesting feature of the auction was that the Park Hollow units were mixed in with the Craig Ranch properties.  You would have a few homes come up and then a few condos.  It was quite a large crowd that required many additional chairs to be brought in.  It seemed that there were more people interested in the SFR’s (Editor’s note: single family residences) than the condominiums.

I don’t have the one page schedule that listed the exact order of the properties to be sold.  Without it, these results are not particularly meaningful.

The high bid results for the ten condominiums in the order in which they were auctioned:

1 – $310,000 (sold to the high bidder)

2 – $300,000 (sold to the high bidder)

3 – $271,000

4 – $471,000 (penhouse unit)

5 – $468,000

6 – $326,000

7 – $233,000

8 – $251,000

9 – $341,000

10 – $300,000

I did receive a call this week from Kennedy Wilson asking if I was still interested in #4.  This indicates that the seller did not accept the high bid.  I advised them that I thought the auction bid was a lot higher than I was willing to pay to begin with.  I asked if other high bids, besides those on the first two had been accepted.  It was indicated that there were some, but that others had been renegotiated upward before being accepted.  So it appears that in certain cases, being the high bidder only wins you the right to negotiate.”