Auctions in general

[redbaron]

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I think we're losing sight of a simple fact. When a buyer and a seller agree on a price, how is that a false value or market? The fact that a broker, the auction house, is the middle man is irrelevant. The reserve is the seller's asking price, just as it would be at a dealer or swap meet. The buyers make offers up to a point that the seller will accept. The notion that the seller should be compelled to sell his car at the highest bid, no matter how low, is just not reasonable. After all, this is an auction with a reserve. The responsibility for not paying a falsely inflated price belongs to the buyer. Nobody is forced to pay more than they are willing to pay.

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How often have we heard this? "At (fill in the auction) this car or that car sold for X dollars, but in the real world it's only worth X". Just trying to figure out a way to pool large groups of cars and people together for resale in a friendlier fashion.

[joey]

My brother owns a auction company and I help him reguraly. Another larger and older auction company that has been here for over 40 years started having classic car auctions and my brother who is a world class auctioneer helped them a time or two.He has since been weaning them off of his skills due to the fact that if you want a bad name start selling cars the way it is currently done.

[Charley Lillard]

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Well Charley for some odd reason I like you. But look, a lot of people don't have the extra 10% funds one way or the other. With that in mind what would you suggest to prevent the false values and market the auctions create.

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I could easily spend equal to that 10% flying around the country on wild goose chases...Not to mention when you get there the car that was a 100 point car is in reality a piece of crap and I just wasted a day of my life. I have no solution to auctions because I am not looking for one. There are plenty of cars that are for sale outside of auctions and that is where I have bought most of mine. I have virtually always sold a car I wanted to sell outside of auctions but I might actually list a couple of mine with auctions since they are not selling the private route.

[NovaMob03]

Imagine the impact if buyers were notified in writing that auction houses were plannung to help bid the item to reach the reserve. This culusion between the house and seller is unfair since both parties pay commissions.
It's a bad joke

[shor]

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<font color="red">Well Charley for some odd reason I like you. </font>

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Did somebody really type that? I think Charley, as moderator, edited that post.

[redbaron]

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<font color="red">Well Charley for some odd reason I like you. </font>

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Did somebody really type that? I think Charley, as moderator, edited that post.

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I actually typed. Well Charley for some odd reason I thought you knew something.

[Johnny Horsepower]

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I think we're losing sight of a simple fact. When a buyer and a seller agree on a price, how is that a false value or market? The fact that a broker, the auction house, is the middle man is irrelevant. The reserve is the seller's asking price, just as it would be at a dealer or swap meet. The buyers make offers up to a point that the seller will accept. The notion that the seller should be compelled to sell his car at the highest bid, no matter how low, is just not reasonable. After all, this is an auction with a reserve. The responsibility for not paying a falsely inflated price belongs to the buyer. Nobody is forced to pay more than they are willing to pay.

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Bingo

[sYc]

Following this thread, and the R/S thread, brings to mind what more then one person has told me. On this site there is a lot of useful information, just at times we take the long way around. IMO, many of us “rookies” understand the whole auction process a whole lot better then we did a few days ago, which to me makes it better for sellers, buyers and the auction houses. Hopefully the auction houses will look at how they do business and clean up some of the gray areas, and no doubt any buyer or seller who has followed all of this will certainly read their contract a lot closer, making sure they understand fully what they are agreeing to.

I for one do believe auction houses serve a useful purpose in our hobby, as does Ebay and other avenues available for selling cars. All have their strong points as well as weak points, but when everyone knows the rules and abides by them, everyone wins.

[tirebird]

I agree Tom: I posted the below comments on the Russo&amp;Steele thread.

I have a few comments that are probably not of interest to most of the readers here. I've never bought or sold a car at auction, never attended an auction, and never watched more than a few seconds of an auction on television. In my opinion, if the auction houses want to protect their supposedly good name, then they have to eliminate this shill business. Yes, by the letter of the law, it's legal. But, by the spirit of fairness and transparency, it's sleezy. There's no better word for it. If a car has a 100k reserve and real buyers only bid 80k, then that's the real value from the buyers willing to purchase the car. Artificially inflating the value up to a possibly outdated price point, doesn't do the hobby or the real buyers any good. But, I'm probably really naive here, it's really about making money for the auction houses.

Out here in California, there are a lot of foreclosed homes being auctioned by banks. I'm sure the same situation exists where you live too. I was visiting friends recently and happened upon one of those auctions at the steps of a local courthouse. This one home, that originally sold for 750K was on the block for a minimum bid of 355k. It didn't get any bids. The bank didn't have shill in the audience to bid the minimum. Would that have been okay? I don't know the law. But I do know, on this day, the bank set an unreasonable price and the laws of supply and demand, rejected it. There was no artificial inflationary bids to unrealistically price the home at a higher value even if it didn't sell. I like that model for the auction business.

[Unreal]

Why is it legal for R&amp;S to "bid up to the reserve" on a car I might have in their auction, but it's not legal for for my brother-in-law to do the same thing?

It can't be the bogus excuse that R&amp;S gave, that, "they were trying to get the seller what he wanted." That's what my brother-in-law would be doing, too!