I sat in my office the other day and watched a property, a Portland area triplex, get bid up via an Internet auction, by more than $100,000 of it’s market value.  Folks just kept clicking away, bidding higher and higher……to the point where I know it became a game simply not to lose to the last clickster!
I certainly don’t want to rain on any seller’s parade, not my point here.  But I gotta say here that if you are a buyer in a sellers market, bidding on real estate via mouse clicks is going to lead to some really poor choices.  And as a seller, do you really think auction fever by a buyer leads to a credible sale?  I’m sure it can, but realistically, there are going to be lots of “outs” and for any seller hanging their hat on a mouse clicking buyer, it just seems so contrary to leading to the certainty of a sale.
Somewhere along the way, we left the recession and real estate became an Internet sport.  Call it Candy Crush for investors, but I do believe that over time, as the Web drives more and more decisions, in reality, perhaps the overall decision making process gets worse and worse.  I think there is room for a proper blend for sure, but I’ll be quite candid here, there still is no substitute for good real estate practitioners who know their craft.