This episode tracks the final six days before absolute auction close on the Tennessee property, with only three bids totaling $15K representing a potential $80K loss while the auctioneer executed final marketing pushes including builder meetings, timber cruising, and strategic signage placement across the region.
Key Takeaways:
- Auction Activity Concentrates in Final 48 Hours All meaningful bidding occurs in the last two days, with most registered bidders waiting until hours before close to participate based on established auction patterns.
- Out-of-State Bidders Provide Emotional Competition The 12 registered bidders being primarily non-local buyers increases likelihood of competitive bidding wars driven by online auction psychology rather than rational local market analysis.
- Auctioneer’s Network Access Determines Success Direct outreach to local builders, timber operators, and appraisers in the final week proves more valuable than three weeks of online marketing.
The property’s 400 auction page views and 20+ expected registered bidders represented strong interest generation, though the auctioneer emphasized results remain unknowable until the final 48-hour bidding window opens.
(Podcast transcript below)
Hey Chris, at Serious Land Capital, Vacant Land Funding Partner. Today I wanted to give you all an update on this absolute auction process since we are days away from its conclusion here. So if you weren’t following this from earlier podcasts to briefly catch you all up, or even for those of you who might be a little bit more familiar, we have a rather nasty 25 acre property.
bit outside of Nashville that we had bought for 90,000. So call it roughly 95 once all closing costs were considered, some ancillary items, neighbor letters, et cetera. And we had only discovered after listing it for a while that the property
had been listed twice within the last year and a half ish and didn’t sell even at a hundred K. So that was a disaster. can look, search the podcast history, maybe a month back when we discovered this, how we started figuring out how to prevent that from ever happening again. And ultimately we backed out of listing the property and
and found a local auctioneer who has had very strong results selling properties like this and others in the region. They’re one of the biggest brokerage groups in central Tennessee, routine, seven, even eight figure type of properties. And the auctioneer had a lot of excellent results, recent track record.
And we would have to be like the worst performing auction by far to not at least break even on the deal. But the caveat is, you have that three week auction period and whatever the final bid is, you are legally obligated to sell the property at that price. So, you know, the initial bid increments are at five thousand. So if somebody only bid five thousand bucks, you know, that’s a ninety K loss right there. So that is the.
Huge downside risk scenario. So here we are where the auction ends next Thursday at noon. So we are a little less than six days exactly away from the final date. And we’re sitting at three total bids at $15,000. So, you know, staring at that, it’s hard not to feel super nervous and looking at, you know, an 80K.
potential loss here if no one else bids. But as the auctioneer had indicated from the start, and I just called him again, right before this, where he’s like, hey, this is just how every single one of these auctions works. Like they all start out with just a handful of bids and the real action just does not start until 48 hours prior to the auction ending.
So, you you just have to sit on pins and needles. You know, a lot of disturbed sleep as you contemplate, you know, having to wait for those final couple of days and really up until the bell rings to see whether you’ve suffered a catastrophic loss or not. get it’s not good for your blood pressure, to say the least. But just to give you an idea of some of the tactics being used here.
Yeah, again, I’ve just been plugging in with the auctioneer routinely, seeing, okay, how are you feeling about this? Give me some of the inside info. What are our total views on the auction page? Tell me about the registered bidders. So jumping through this, we’re sitting at…
Almost 400 total views of the auction page and I think there’s 12 registered bidders and there’s several more he mentioned local guys who always show up to these who only registered a bid like a couple days beforehand. So he’s expecting roughly 20 maybe more registered bidders. And in fact, the ones registered now, most of them are out of staters, which is excellent because we know for these online auctions, if you can get
you folks who aren’t local and, you know, just engage in kind of a competitive bidding war. you know, just going to get the dopamine hits of, of clicking. that is what we want for a property like this, where there are, you know, there’s certain hair attached to the property, like a transmission line going through it. and some, you know, somewhat,
negative contour for some of the buildable areas. But you know, the massive pros about this property is that, you know, it has sewer access, 25 acres, that’s just, you not routine. And there’s no moratorium on, you know, being able to hook up to the sewer. You always got to check that even if something does have sewer access. So I guess the moratorium was in place in the past, but now it’s not. So, you know, it’s fully buildable, even developable.
plot and the broker is really just exploring every possible angle. He said, yeah, you just have to do that. So he’s really orienting. Okay. Final push here before the auction due date. He’s meeting some local builders on Monday to pitch him the idea. And, and, you he was kind of orienting, Hey, you could get, um, I think it was like four or four. There was roughly like eight.
buildable lots that could all have sewer access from the 25 acres in total. So, you know, there’s a real chance that there could be decent upside, even accounting for some of those more, you know, negative features like the transmission line and a little bit of the difficult slope. But admittedly, the neighbors are also built on some of the trickier contour there.
he has a timber guy cruising the property this weekend. he goes, not, that much mature timber, but at least he can figure out evaluation. Maybe there’s an opportunity, to work with it from that angle. he had multiple physical signs, both in the local, town right next to the property, well as, closer to their home base in Nashville. He’s been getting calls about that.
including one of the local appraisers. And so the auctioneer was saying, you know, put a, put a bug in the ear of some of the other builders might interact with like this thing is, it’s going to be sold in less than a week here. So if you want any piece of the action, got to go after it. And he was also doing some additional boots on the ground. I have to review my transcript again. This is the point of having a meeting notes.
but yeah, really just kind of, being around town and just being a salesman and just say, Hey, know, auction coming up here. Like I do appreciate the hustle. This guy has been putting in here. I don’t really think you could do much better, frankly, in terms of the different angles and trying to stir up interest in the property. Plus they’re doing another Facebook and Instagram and email blast.
Uh, two days beforehand and then, you know, as, at the lead up, Hey, final recognition for the, or, you know, final warning for the auction going off. So, you know, push, push, push for those final days. They have a dialed in system here. Um, and, know, there’s only so much we can do on our end. I, you know, we, I think I remarked in a previous podcast, um, but just to, you know, we’re obviously stressed about this and we want a good result.
So we joined every single Tennessee land Facebook group and was sharing the auction post It got through on most of them and most these land groups are just filled with spam and you just get buried Super quickly, but you know, you might get a couple hits here and there And so I was trying to comment on all of the auctioneers Brokerages posts as well to try to bump up some of the activity. I mean, there’s again, there’s only so much you can do
From that perspective, but it’s it’s something to encourage you know some additional views and an activity as much as possible because again It only takes you know one to find that right bitter Who wants to kind of keep up the action at least get us to a break-even price? That is Obviously the goal here anything beyond break-even would be absolute gravy I’m not counting on it, but you know who knows I’ll be able to report on it in in about a week here, so
With all that in mind, yeah, the auctioneer is just like, I’m not concerned about this level headed. Like these are just how things go and hey, I’m going to give you a call on Tuesday afternoon. He’s like, yeah, usually I can get it like a really good sense 48 hours out where we stand. Yeah. If there are any concerns, we’ll bring them up, figure out what else we have to do to push this thing forward. but until then, like he’s going to keep working on his end.
prep some final interest in this property and try to get the best result possible. Again, he’s incentivized to sell it as high as possible. That’s where he’s gonna get a 10 % commission out of it. So it could be a decent chunk of change for three weeks of work and knowing there’s a guaranteed sale. So all those incentives are indeed aligned.
But yeah, that’s just to update you where we’re at. It’s been an interesting process to say the least. you know, I, until I see how this goes, like, I, I don’t know if I would ever want to do this again. Like it is just in an inordinate amount of stress, to go through in absolute auction here when I’m just like staring at the potential loss, trying to distract myself from it.
Um, most hours of the day, got it. It’s a nasty feeling for like, you know, I have to wait till the end of three weeks to figure out whether you, you, you want or not. Um, not pleasant, but, uh, ultimately I still think in terms of, uh, getting at least a serviceable result out of just a brutal property that we should never have bought in the first place. This was still the best option. Um,
And we’re going to see how it goes. We don’t have a choice. So with that in mind, SeriousLand.Capital for any of your funding needs. had an excellent 325K purchase in Ohio that probably is going to double minor subdivide. just, didn’t fully understand the property. I didn’t have all the info off the bat, but I hope to work with this land investor again.
really excellent research and solid process. So hopefully next time. And then land daily diligence Facebook group for any of your review of your land deals and then landpricer.ai most efficient and simple way to price land. I was just talking with Callan earlier today and all of her encouragement.
about building out that software. It always helps to hear from another entrepreneur rooting you on in the midst of various uncertainty and just wondering whether you’re heading in the right direction. So very much appreciate that. Looking forward to next time. Subscribe and share. Take care everybody. Bye.
