Auction.com

Based on the reviews, I was aware that auction.com may internally bid up the auction price, acting as another bidder. I am fine with that as i am sure they are trying to obtain the reserve price set by the bank. As an investor, you bid only to a price you are comfortable with.
In any case, I won the auction, and had to provide them with funds and paperwork within 2 hours! Very unreasonable, even for someone who has a flexible schedule.
We were suppose to close within 20 days, mid Dec. It is now mid Febuary and I have had to sign an extension 4 times. This is a cash purchase, so there is no reason for delays and the home is vacant. Part of the problem is their 3rd party closer who was quite useless but either way charges $1200. I used my own title company and she has been the one doing the job of the seller's title company. Closing was delayed bc the bank rejected outstanding HOA fees in the amount of $400.00. There is no way one can obtain clear title without this lien being paid off. This debate could have delayed closing for months. I offered to pay the $400. Still no closing as of today. Requested another extension letter. In the meantime, the seller has paid in excess of $3000 in taxes and insurance bc of these delays.
I will say that the customer service and the representatives at auction.com have tried to assist. IS it possible that they can only move as fast as the seller?

In any case, if this goes through, I would still purchase again, but they would not be my first outlet. If it doesnt, I have every intention on filing a complaint. I purchase 4-5 homes a year to rehab and resell. This was my first experience with Auction.com.

Shady Auction site! Bidding against Customers
They're always bidding against me to drive the price up!

DIRTY!

I've bought three properties from auction.com & the last one was the worst! There are some good deals, but you have to be really careful or they will just let deals sit with your money tied up, give you faulty title making a property impossible to sell, and screw up every piece of paperwork.

Do NOT use their closing company Servicelink-they are HORRIBLE and incompetent. We got to closing and they provided the wrong deed. It then took over 80 days to get them to correct it. The closing specialist at auction, Lynette Achong, was completely unresponsive for weeks-my realtor and I called and emailed daily for two weeks to get a response. She was rude and when we pushed, she would threaten to kill the whole deal & keep my earnest money if we didn't stop calling. I told her to bring it on-she wouldn't have a leg to stand on. She was basically mad we used our own title company who caught their mistake. She said she had planned to close our deal to have it count for her April numbers & our insisting on the correct deed was going to mess up her pay bonus... tough, honey... not my problem...

No one will ever let you talk to anyone's supervisor, but when we got to 80+ days and no response for weeks & her threats, they finally elevated it & got it done. It required a director at servicelink to force the title agent their, Heather Moeser, to do her job.

The vast majority of their properties have a problem, which is why the banks use the auction sites to sell them. You have to do your homework and I wouldn't recommend the site for inexperienced real estate investors unless you have a savvy realtor to help you. Properties are sold as is, including title issues, so it requires either a lot of due diligence or such low prices you're not risking much.

Our first lienholder required the use of Auction.com when we went through the short sale process. They won't allow the sellers' agent to conduct negotiations and instead "do it" themselves. Their idea of negotiating is telling the second lienholder they must accept X amount or 'we' (sellers I presume) will sue them. Many, many months later the second lienholder approves the offer. Settlement is scheduled. A week before settlement was to occur, the first lienholder now denies the sale because after all this time the appraisal had expired. Of course, the house appraised higher. The buyer wouldn't increase his offer so we were back to square one.

The 'negotiator' at Auction.com would only ever want to communicate over the phone. She never had anything to say - just kept repeating herself, giving the same non-info in various ways. She told me the second lienholder had to accept the first's offer. Okay... then why aren't they? She gets the second lien rep on a three-way call and tells him that that company is terrible. That certainly didn't light a fire under anyone to get the deal done.

Since it fell through, we relisted publicly. First lienholder sent it to Auction.com who advised the realtor to list it with certain language. She ignored the directive because we already had an offer in hand that was over the asking price. Luckily, no one bid, and Auction.com was no longer involved.

Not surprisingly, the realtor's negotiator got results much, much more quickly than the people at Auction.com. We are finally rid of the house we tried so hard to keep (but couldn't sustain because of non-paying renters), no thanks to Auction.com.