House Auction

I was walking around the neighborhood one day and I saw a house auction just around the corner from where I lived. I've never been to one so I thought I'd stick around, read the procedures and watch the auction happen.

They do a lot of house auctions in Australia...you know, where you raise your hand, bid against other buyers and the seller yells out "SOLD" and does the hammer thing. Over here, you have to apply for a bidder's registration number. You cannot pretend to be a buyer when in fact, you are working for the owner. When caught, you can get penalized $50k and the real estate agent and owner might get fined, too!

So we were all called out to the front of the house. The bidding starts and nobody was budging. Ten minutes later, nothing still. I thought it would be more exciting than that. Unfortunately, nobody bid on the house (maybe too embarrassed to suggest a price that's too low???). They had to close the bidding and put the house back in the market.