The house was old, in its original, dated, and deteoriated condition. An addition was added to the back of the house, which was all rotted out and in very poor condition. Outside of the house looks decent, it's just because it was recently painted. 4 beds, and 2 baths, around 1800 sq ft (though I question the legality of some of the work). A very nice size flat backyard, full of dirt at this point, but can be landscaped nicely. Downstairs basement is unfinished, low ceiling, with tons of books on shelves - once made into a library I guess). There was stairs access to the backyard but had about $20K in termite damage. We guesstimate that it would cost about $150K-$200K to have everything gutted out and rebuilt to a more open floorplan and replace all the plumbing, etc. Either case, we knew we weren't serious about bidding but registered anyways and stayed to watch the auction.
There was quite a lot of bidders/spectators when the auction started at 3:15pm. When the bidding got to around $750K though, there were only 4-5 serious bidders at that time. One was them was a granny who stood right next to us... she was bidding into the high figures too!! My heart was beating for her...what is she thinking? She was with her husband, a man in all gray hair - and a young child. I overheard her talking to one of the auction assistants that they were just "walking by," but when she filled out the registration form, she wrote down that she would pay all CASH for the purchase. Holy, is she for real??? The bid got up to $787K or so, and she was still raising her number! The situation was soooo intense that I HAD to just walk away! The final bid was $791K to a Chinese guy with his wife and small child. With $200K in reno costs, it will put this house in the $1M range, which is very comparable to the neighboring houses... I guess he didn't necessarily overpaid, but definitely didn't get a good deal either. It's about right -- but if he's to pay $791K and $200K in renovation costs, that's like buying a house at $1M so why not just get a nice, fully renovated house for that same amount? Or maybe the houses there can go for MORE than $1M? Glad that granny didn't win... We question whether she even knows what she's getting herself into? She barely looked at the house! Too much for our little hearts to handle. Whew!!
