Hi Kenst,

I’m assuming you’re referring to the RealForeclose platform. I’ve seen this happen many times. What looks like “last-second bidding” usually isn’t an intentional last-second strategy. It’s simply the time it takes for a bidder to decide to increase their offer, type it in, hit the confirmation button, and for the Foreclosure Service system to receive it, validate it, and display it on the screen. That delay is what triggers those 30–60 second extensions every time someone bids manually.

The real question is: why do people bother doing this manually when they could just enter their max bid and let the system handle it? Even if they win, the system will only award the sale at $100 above the next highest bidder, not at their full max bid. There’s no financial downside to using the max-bid feature.

Most of the time, this behavior comes down to inexperience. A lot of bidders simply don’t understand how the max-bid system works. Other times, it’s a deliberate tactic to test whether there’s another active human bidder (not just a proxy bid) and to feel out where the other person’s top number might be.

I know it’s frustrating, but that’s how it goes on these auctions.

Because, the bidders do not understand what a proxy bid is. Remember, most of the people bidding against you are idiots. I wish they would change to rules so there were no time extentions.