Hi OzBargain, I would really appreciate your help on this one.
My wife and I attended an auction on Saturday, hoping to grab our first apartment to be our home. The advertised price guide was $700k-$770k. We were unsure about marker interest so thought it would be a great learning opportunity to go.
Of the 15 or so people there, I realised that I was the only registered bidder. So I started off the bidding at $700k, being able to react to the vendor bid.
The agent at this stage takes us into another room and tells us this this is not enough. That the vendor is only willing to sell for more than $800k. We say that the best we can do is $750k. We go back to the main room and they make a vendor bid of $800k. No one is willing to go over it including us, so it is passed in. They said they might negotiate with us throughout the week.
My question is are they underquoting the property? Since the price guide advertised was $700-$770k but they were clearly never going to sell it for that. They have now changed the listing price to $840k.
Thanks for your help OzBbargain.
P.S. We are also going to chat this through with our conveyancer before approaching the agent again
It is 100% underquoting. Of course the agent knew what the vendor wanted for the property. But proving it is nearly impossible.
If you don't have proof the agent knew about the minimum price - then you can't make a complaint about underquoting.
But we all know the real estate auction process is completely and utterly rotten in Australia.
I'm sorry this monkey business is continuing.