We've got our eye and heart on a property that's going to auction...we feel very unsure about a lot of things...
(1) We inspected, loved it, assumed it'd be beyond our price range and that a heap of people would be interested.
(2) The agent called 2 days later (4 times in one day trying to get hold of us) and we asked how things were going and he said it was very disappointing and there'd been no interest at all. Among other things, he said a price definitely in our price range could buy it. We were very happy with this, but still not sure if we'd be able to buy it as we have to sell our place and obviously auctions are totally unpredictable. The agent said money was not the main factor here...the seller is 89 years old and has a deposit on a nursing home so 60 day settlement is imperative...
(3) We went to another open inspection and this time there was more interest, and the agent now said mid $300s would be the price, not low $300s like he implied earlier on the phone. Hmm. Not happy with that.
(4) We found out we can buy it without having to sell our place first IF it doesn't go above $350,000-ish.
So we're planning to make an offer of $345,000 and see what happens. We do NOT want it to go to auction, but the agent said they still will even if they get offers prior. SIGH!
At the auction...what do we do? Obviously we'll register, but we have to have the deposit ready, right? What does this actually MEAN? Do we need to be able to bring a cheque with us or just be able to transfer the money between bank accounts or something? They'll take 5% the agent said.
Also, are you supposed to get the building & pest inspection and title search BEFORE the auction?? (or else if you get it afterwards, with no cooling off period, if something bad is found, you're stuck with it?) But how does this work? We have NO idea if we've even got a slight chance with this property!! It could very well go for low $400s, in which case we're WAY out, and so why would we spend several hundreds on the inspections??? We can't afford that!!