Our auction of a former auto dealership in Columbus, Ohio has come to an exciting end! The facility was comprised of three buildings in a high traffic industrial area. I don’t know if it was the property, the commercial land’s potential for redevelopment, the low minimum bid or the facility’s location that sparked such intense interest, but I can say that several bidders restlessly rose the stakes until one individual eventually won the property.
An initial bid deadline was set for December 17th, 2009, but the energized bidders continually extended the Bid Deadline for an additional 3 weeks! In each of LFC’s auctions, the seller has the right to invoke our patent-pending bid extension process called LAST CALL®, which extends the bid deadline by an additional 24 hours. Each time a new bid is placed, the deadline is extended once more.
LAST CALL® protects bidders from auction sniping. If you are familiar with other online auctions sites such as eBay, you know that everyone interested in the auction waits until the very last second to place their bid. There is even software that will automatically enter a bid in the last millisecond of the auction, what we call “auction sniping.” LAST CALL® protects bidders by eliminating the possibility of “sniping.” Real estate is a rather large investment to make online and we strive to give all bidders a fair chance at winning.
Understanding that real estate is a rather large investment to make online, we made the LAST CALL® extension increment 24 hours to give bidders plenty of time to deliberate. Similar to the live auctions held in a hotel ballroom or on the steps of a courthouse where auctioneers cry out, “Going once! Going twice! LAST CALL! SOLD!”, we give bidders extra time to calculate how much they are willing to pay for a property. However, unlike live auctions, which only give bidders mere seconds to analyze a property’s worth, we want bidders to take their time and make decisions rationally rather than in the heat of the moment.
In this recent Columbus campaign, LAST CALL® lasted for several weeks, driven by several bidders who competed throughout the holiday season, bidding on both Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Finally, the auction ended on January 8th, 2010 and the sale is now currently pending.
Thank you to all who followed our real time updates for this auction on Twitter (@LFC_Auction). If you didn’t stay up to date with our tweets you can view the Bid History on our commercial real estate auction website LFC.com.
