Sold my mother's farm, tractor, etc. today.

[ultrarunner]

I think he said 10% premium added to buyers bid???

 

[Oaktree]

There are sooooo many nice homes in rural areas in NC that are empty. Not McMansions but nice sized homes. The grand parents lived in the house, raised a family, which almost always has to move away for work, and then the grandparents die. Nobody CAN live in the home because there are no job nearby and the house is remote. Even if there is land, there is not enough land to make a living any more, so the house sits. Sometimes the house is maintained but often it just rots away. It is sad to see.

Near my wife's family's land is a number of HUGE old farm houses, well, mansions. Just huge. They are just rotting away because nobody could/would live there. Sad.

It is sad. Lots of places like that around here too. Always wondered why the inheritors didn't just sell the property if they didn't want it. Maybe bickering among family members and couldn't reach a decision? Shame to see these old places just sit there and deteriorate...after a few years just the dampness, rodents, weather (and sometimes vandalism) make the place so it'd cost a fortune to make inhabitable again.

Can’t say that I have ever heard of a home selling via auction here unless it’s a foreclosure action on the steps of the courthouse deal.

Yeah, I've never heard of that either for a home. Maybe a business. Must be a regional thing.

Wrong,.... buyer pays 10% fee to auctioneer, inherited property so no taxes to us. We pay half of survey and fees for deed. Rest is ours.

Having never participated in an auction (as either a buyer or seller) how does that work? Does the buyer pay the auctioneer's fee, and the seller gets all the proceeds or does the seller have to pay a percentage to the auctioneer too?

 

[Diggin It]

It is sad. Lots of places like that around here too. Always wondered why the inheritors didn't just sell the property if they didn't want it. Maybe bickering among family members and couldn't reach a decision? Shame to see these old places just sit there and deteriorate...after a few years just the dampness, rodents, weather (and sometimes vandalism) make the place so it'd cost a fortune to make inhabitable again.

He addressed that:

Nobody CAN live in the home because there are no job nearby and the house is remote. Even if there is land, there is not enough land to make a living any more, so the house sits. Sometimes the house is maintained but often it just rots away. It is sad to see.

Near my wife's family's land is a number of HUGE old farm houses, well, mansions. Just huge. They are just rotting away because nobody could/would live there. Sad.

Let go and sell it to someone who else who can be the next caregiver.

Many of those older houses would be OK as long as the new owners could live the way people used to. Which most just don't want to.

They don't always have central heat or AC. Until the late 70s, AC in homes was almost unheard of. The old places were designed for flow through cooling, open the windows and left the draft flow in the first floor out out the upstairs. Would any of us want to do that today? Yes, they had a great many 100 degree plus days when the nights didn't cool off. Today, we can't even drive to the grocery store without AC in our cushy vehicles.

Then in Winter, they'd use a fireplace or three. Some may have had boilers and radiators, others may have had oil or coal furnaces. Many may have been updated to forms of central heat and/or AC, but costs to operate are still high unless they've also been well insulated which not all have.

Took me several years to get this late 40's farmhouse retrofitted to where I can keep it comfortable enough for me without breaking the bank every month. But this is a small one. I can't imagine taking on one of those massive old places that housed families of ten or fifteen.

 

[LouNY]

It used to be that all the fees were paid by the seller usually a percentage, 5-7% sometimes there would be high and a low cap.
Now days it seems like many have gone to buyers premiums were the buyer has to pay the fees and I have seen them range from 7% to as high as 15%. I normally refuse to attend an auction that has a buyers premium.

 

[ponytug]

@LouNY I am not trying to change your viewpoint or behavior, but I am curious as to why you would skip an auction with a buyers premium? If it is, say 10%, you know what the bid is, so you know that the cost to you is the bid plus 10%. It isn't as if the buyer's premium is a magic number that gets randomly added afterwards.

Don't get me wrong, please stay home, I would love to have fewer competitors at auctions. I know that I will get more bargains that way.

Personally, I think that auctioneers went to buyers premium because most people remember their bid price, not total cost, and therefore perceive that they got a better deal.

All the best,

Peter

 

[LouNY]

My main objection is the added cost to the buyer when you are looking at a piece of equipment and bidding on it you shouldn't have to keep adding in the buyers premium in your mind you have enough going on.
Plus, it's a fairly new way of doing business that I just don't like or believe to be appropriate.
And it can be a random number as I've seen some auction listing with several different buyers premium amount depending on the bid total.

Looking at your location I doubt that we would be bidding competitors.

 

[grsthegreat]

I stay away from auctions anymore. Too many people bidding almost as high as you can buy the thing for new.

 

[Jstpssng]

I stay away from auctions anymore. Too many people bidding almost as high as you can buy the thing for new.

Tell me about it. I've only participated in online auctions and set a limit before I start bidding.
Gunbroker is bad for that; many dealers selling guns with a minimum bid of list price. After adding the firearms fees on both ends you're better off going to your local dealer for new or easy to find items.

 

[ponytug]

Yes, I pick and choose. Like @Jstpssng, I go in knowing what I want to pay as a hard limit, Some auctions are hot for no particular reason that I can see with people bidding well above list prices for well used items. I don't get it either.

I picked up some new farm equipment at auction this year for a small fraction of list. They were a minor part of the main auction and it was mostly me and a couple of dealers. Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you just need to walk away.

Since what I tend to be looking for are a "if it is a good price" item, I allow for all of the other expenses, and a hefty "what if it needs a big repair" factor. I don't mind restoring items that I will continue to use; I find it rewarding just to bring an old item back into useful service.

All the best,

Peter

 

[sandman2234]

I went to a farm Equipment auction in Idabel, Ok with my Dad. I would bid on a boxblade up to my limit, then get outbid by a guy trying to buy a lot of stuff to resale. He finally walked over and asked me what I was trying to buy, (which should have been obvious). The next 6' boxblade that came up, nobody bid against me, so I got it cheap, and then he resumed buying stuff at a better price because he didn't have me bidding everything up to my max. We loaded the boxblade up after the last Brown treecutter went for more than I was willing to pay.
David from jax