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Oklahoma | Not that I have been to lots of land auctions but "here" it seems to be that no one ever really knows if the final bid was accepted or not. Been to several house/land auctions where they cried for 20-30 minutes over a particular tract then they take a "break" to go talk to the landowner but they never come back and reopen bids, just move on to other stuff.
My dad bought a piece of land back in 97 at auction that was one of several tracts (40-160 ac tracts scattered over about 18 miles) selling during a farm close out. My Dad ended up with the final bid at the sale on a 40 acre tract that was landlocked (legal easement but not a big turn out for that tract of land. On the following Monday, the auctioneer called and claimed the land didn't bring enough and shot Dad a price that they "had to have or no sale". Dad told the auctioneer to stick it, that there were other bidders there that bid and that set market value when he was the high bidder. Auctioneer threatened again and Dad told him to send him his money back and that would be the last auction of theirs he ever attended. Auctioneer begged for him to up his offer $100/ac and Dad hung up. Two days later they called back and told him he had it bought for the sale price. The following winter I was in the country cafe getting a bite to eat and the landowner that had the auction stopped and asked if we were the ones that bought that place. I told him my Dad did and he proceeded to tell me how they didn't get enough money on any of the land but the land we bought was so sorry that he let it go (funny that it was so sorry but to us it was a full 40 acres of bottom land, 1.5 miles from home, kind of a no brainer for the price). He also admitted they got several others to up their bids and then still rejected them. So I don't know if the auctioneer was that crazy to pull the stunt or just working for the seller. The really sad thing was in about 2004 that same guy got cancer and had a second farm close, very few people showed up.
I have read about these "board auctions" or whatever it is called where they have all the various combinations of tracts. I don't know that I really want to know how it works but then again curiousity makes me wonder.
Edited by jcs 3/16/2009 22:57
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auctioneer tactics
