My first auction

I have been helping my friend in terms of house hunting over the last few months. Yesterday, had the opportunity to get a first hand experience of an auction. It all started a month ago when his buyer's agent provided the details of house. We went for the first open inspection, the house was a very nice well maintained and rennovated house in a great location. So after all the ground work and verification he decided to participate in the auction. I was more excited them him and when it started, our agent placed the first bid and slowly 3-4 people joined the auction.It was interesting to observe an auction particularly the body language of people.
The first to bow out were a young couple. Once it crossed a certain figure, the wife started nodding and the faithful partner never spoke a word again. The second to bow out were another young couple, the wife kept nodding but the agent pursuaded the partner to increase the bid in $500 but after while they gave up. After a fierce bidding we had to give up as the price went over the actul estimated price and the price we had in our head. If i was bidding for myself, i would have got a bit emotional and been there for a little more. May be that's why they say it is not advisable for the buyer to bid.

Majestic Melbourne housing market with MCG and Yarra taken from Eureka Towers in 2011

Now, the only two people left in the race were two father-daughter combinations. My agent said this combination is every bidder's worst nightmare and a seller's dream. I could easily understand why he said so in a few minutes. Whenever they got outbid, the daughter's face shrunk and seeing that the father just kept up the bidding. This was getting more emotional. Finally one of them had to give up and the other ended happily buying the property way above the market price. It was nice to see the smile on the daughter's face and the satisfaction on the dad's face.

When you look at this from a third person's view it doesn't make sense to pay above market price but from my perspective getting your daughter her dream home is priceless and money doesn't matter. Personally for me when it comes to family it is always emotional and money never comes into the picture. That's how my parents have brought me up.

Yesterday evening was fun, there was dinner plans at a friends place. It started with a few drinks and a nice dinner. I was expecting a bad hangover today morning but am here writing my blog early in the morning.A long day ahead with updating my resume, linked in profile, cleanup, catchup, shopping and a couple of big ones restarting my training for the marathon and ironing my clothes...