starstarstarstarstar about 8 years ago
Disappointing sale outcome and communication style
We went through the traditional phases of prize and conditioning, as it is often the case in the industry and we could manage this. However, we had a pretty traumatic auction experience, and had no clue this could happen.
We had told Clay we were not in a hurry to sell. A couple of days before the auction, we also asked Clay (face to face) what would happen if the price was slowing down far from our reserve price, and what could happen during the auction. Clay answered that, as vendors, there was nothing to worry about. He explained to us that we would negotiate with the highest bidder after the auction and eventually put it on the market after the auction if need be. Clay did not mention that he would ask (in truth push very hard) for us to put it on the market during the auction, at great risks.
During the auction, as the bidding slowed down, Clay pushed really hard on us to let the property go well below the reserve price (bids were $170,000 below reserve, i.e. 15% of the value of the property)! We were shocked by his suggestion and immediately refused, and did this multiple times. Clay “promised that this would trigger another round of bidding” and he asked over and over again. Out of our comfort zone, and also somewhat committed to sell, we finally agreed to give it a go at $120,000 under reserve price. It sold without triggering any other further bid.
With hindsight we would have preferred to negotiate post auction, as originally planned, or keep the property. The agent priorities were clearly different from ours...
We did feel abused and played by the agent, who said that it may be a night for a Pinot rather than Champagne after the auction! Of course, we never heard back from Clay, who was supposed to call us the day after the auction. We tried to get in touch a few times, but he never returned my calls, so we never got the chance to tell him our feedback...
We will never know what would have happened "if...", but we likely lost $50k to $100k