Failed Auction

We went to our first home auction today. There was a big crowd but in the end only 4 people seem to have registered to bid in the auction. The auctioneer called for bids and no-one bidded. Not even "$500k" say. Maybe those people were just too embarassed to say they weren't bidding? So the auctioneer went inside and phoned the vendor and came back and made a bid (he's allowed to make one) at $820k. No-one bidded and the house was passed in without sale. It will now be remarketed with a fixed price. It will be interesting if that will be at $820k or less. This is a further sign that the property market is softening here. There are few auctions now. Most properties are marketed with fixed prices and there are a lot for sale compared to the number that have sold recently. A year or two ago it was mostly auctions.

P.S.
This house that we saw last weekend has already been slashed by $70k. It started way too high of course.