Going to Auction

You’ll see a lot of properties going to auction. This is a similar process to making an offer but with a couple of really key differences:

1. You have to be unconditional on the day and pay a deposit if you win. This means that you need to do any checks before auction day – getting the lawyer to review documents, and using your building inspector to check the property out. And you need cash available to pay the deposit – this can be a little more difficult if your only source of deposit is KiwiSaver – it is good to have some savings outside of this so you access the funds easily.
2. It’s transparent – unlike a blind offer situation, you can see what the other people are bidding on and decide whether to go higher or not.
3. It can be really nerve-wracking standing in the auction room so having a support person there isn’t a bad idea!

A few auction mindset tips:

Now different people talk about auction strategies, some of these might be:

• • Go in early and hard with your numbers to get your bids out, and hopefully knock a few people out of the process.
  • When people start bidding in $1,000 increments, pop in a higher bid to see if you can knock them out of the process.

To be honest though, I am a big believer that the person who has access to, and is happy to spend the most money on the property will typically win as much as strategy can come into it, if they are prepared to pay more than you, then it is what it is.

So a key thing is to be really clear on your “number” going into the auction room and being comfortable with this