I stopped by the house auction at 463 16th Avenue this afternoon. I was curious to see how a house auction actually works. Plus I wanted to see the inside of this 4 bedroom house that was listed at $625,000.
I arrived a little before 3pm and there were about 40 people milling around outside. I took a quick tour through the house and then we were told that everyone had to get out as the auction was about to start.
The interior of the house was neglected compared to the freshly painted exterior. Not surprisingly, there were no interior shots included with the house’s online listing.
While the house had nice (though worn) hardwood floors throughout, original mouldings, and a built-in buffet in the dining room, the house needs some real tender loving care. See the slideshow below for interior shots of the house.
And the kitchen and bathrooms? Well let’s just say I’m not sure how a family managed to call it home. There is a large garage on the bottom that could hold two cars, but curiously, it looked like an annex of Green Apple Books, with long shelves holding thousands of books.
I’m no contractor, but it’s safe to say you could spend $200,000 fixing up this home.
The auction was put on by Reliance Realty with a real estate investment group called reicircle.com. At 3:15 the auctioneer gave some brief background on the property and the auction process. And then we were off, with bidding starting at $525,000.
The auction took about 30 minutes. The auctioneer thought he was very funny, injecting cheesy jokes throughout the process. But in reality, he was not very good and often lost track of where the bidding was and who had last bid. Thankfully he had some able assistants helping him out.
Despite the large crowd that gathered, only about 10 people ended up bidding on the property. Most people, like me, were there to see what was going to happen. Bidding got up to $700,000 pretty quickly and then moved up in $1000 to $2000 incremements for the next twenty minutes.
Final bids were traded between a woman named Sue, and a man named David who was there with his family. The winning bid was placed by David, at $791,000.
From here, David will have three business days to get all his financing in order and go into escrow. If he doesn’t qualify, then the real estate company will move onto the 2nd, 3rd and 4th place bidders until a final, qualified buyer is found.
So rest assured that the real estate market is alive and well in the Richmond District.
Sarah B.
The crowd outside 463 16th Avenue for the auction
The auctioneer from reicircle.com
The auctioneer congratulates the winning bidder
It will be interesting to see how much they fix it up before moving in. Or if the winner will rent it or flip it. $791K for a SFH that big is on the surface is a steal. Beneath the surface, a lot will depend on whether they can update it without spending a fortune. They can easily spend $200K but can they with effort only spend $100K but with good results. I think a lot of folks overdo it on remodels – they lose sight of what is required vs. desired.
Looks like the bookshelves are holding up the ceiling in the garage. i think it will take alot more than $200,000 to redo this one.
Thanks for posting this. We couldn’t make the auction, but stopped by during the open house to ask questions and the realtors were very cagey about giving us information. We tried to find out why they were doing an auction instead of a normal sale and they just talked in circles.
If it really takes $200k to upgrade it’s gonna be a thin margin compared to the other houses on the block (at least according to zillow).
Do you think the winning bidder gets to keep the books?
Yes, the eventual owner gets to keep the books though I think that’s a negotiation point to drive DOWN the price IMO. 😉
Sarah B.