Upcoming Foreclosures

Why would a prospective bidder at a foreclosure auction get qualified but never bid?

I was at the real estate foreclosure auction this week down at my local county court house. The auction facilitator asked for perspective bidders to come forward and be qualified to bid on the next property. Several people came forward, showing their funds to the facilitator therefore becoming qualified. But when bidding actually started, nobody place a bid. The property reverted back to the lender. Why would those people step forward to be qualified but never actually place a bid? The bid price was announced before they asked for qualified bidders. So everyone who was getting qualified already knew the opening bid.

Public Comments

1. Maybe they didn't like the minimum bid being asked.
2. Maybe they decided that they didn't want to bid on the property.
3. I've been one of those people. Once they opened bidding, I wasn't comfortable with how high the bidding went, especially with some of the opening bids. I was also new and didn't want to miss an opportunity to participate, but knew I was out once the bidding started and I heard some of the amounts. Big difference between the amount of funds you need to show to bid, and how much you'll have to come up with if you win!
4. No one bid? Maybe they were thinking, "Why is no one else bidding? Is something wrong with the property that I missed? Maybe they all know better then me and I had better not bid on that one." Just a thought, there is no way to know without asking a few.