The real estate market is slowing down and many owners find themselves stuck with a home put up for sale that… does not find a buyer. To get out of this uncomfortable situation, they can resort to voluntary real estate auctions. Nothing to do with those carried out in court after a seizure, liquidation or exit from conflicting joint ownership, where the assets are sold at significant discounts. Voluntary auctions take various forms, you need to understand the workings before getting started.
Some notary firms use auctions to sell property, mainly from inheritances. The buyer who wants to participate, directly or via the Internet, must have validated their financing for the study in advance. Because if he wins the bet, he benefits from neither a withdrawal period nor any suspensive condition, even if he does not obtain his credit. Once the sale is over, other candidates have ten days to bid higher, by at least 10%, on the hammer price. If they do so, a new sale, which begins at the price of the bidding war, must take place. After this period, the buyer has forty-five days to pay the price under consideration and the sale is final.
A declining market
© / The Express
It is sometimes possible to choose your buyer
Simple because they are less regulated, interactive notarial sales are carried out by many more studies. “If a seller wants us to organize one, they must sign an exclusive sales mandate for us, explains Anne-Claire Marteau, notary of the Monassier Group in Joué-lès-Tours. Then, we set the terms of visit, which we ensure , then we decide when the auction will go live and when it will end.” During this period, buyers can bid at any time and, ultimately, it is not necessarily the one with the highest bid who will win the property. “The seller can, for example, favor a buyer without suspensive conditions even if his price is a little lower,” explains Anne-Claire Marteau.
Please note, these auctions are not the magic solution for selling a ruin. For them to work, “you need a maximum number of buyers and they will only bid on a sought-after property”, warns Grégoire Mitry, notary in Nantes. In addition, once completed, these sales require the signing of a preliminary contract – promise or compromise – to transform into a firm commitment. The buyer therefore benefits from legal withdrawal periods.
Regularization is done before a notary
Several companies also carry out interactive auctions: Enchères Immo, Vench, etc. Concretely, these platforms promote the advertisements and manage the operations, carried out online and open for a specific duration. Buyers submit a file in advance to be able to participate in the sale. Once the deadline for bidding has expired, the buyer and seller must regularize their transaction before a notary. As long as this formality has not been completed, they are not committed and can give up.
The terms are still a little different at Drouot-Immo, the latest arrival on the market. This company offers partner agencies – for the moment the Espaces atypicals group, others will follow – to take advantage of its internationally known platform in order to auction real estate. “We are rather targeting high-end housing with character,” explains Maëlys de Lummen, president of Drouot Immobilier. Buyers must pre-register by submitting a complete file and a security deposit of 1,000 euros, returned if they do not win the auction. The sale takes place on a date fixed in advance and buyers have sixty minutes, behind their screen, to make an offer. “If a final bid is placed just at the end of the deadline, we leave three more minutes for all bidders to react, and the sale ends after three minutes without activity,” explains Maëlys de Lummen.
Here again, buyer and seller must regularize before a notary so that the transaction is deemed firm. But with Drouot-Immo, the seller cannot withdraw if his reserve price has been reached and he has no choice of buyer, because he must settle with the best bidder.
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