Buying at auction

[Audrey]

Anyone on here ever bought a house at auction?

[Batch]

Does watching Homes Under the Hammer count?

[Bob's Orange]

Read the legal pack.

[Audrey]

It’s the estate agent fees which is putting me off. It’s a cheap-ish house I’ll rent out but their fees are nearly £7000 on a purchase price of around£120,000. Just wondering if the seller agreed to sell without going to auction it’d do away with those estate agent fees. Looking at other agents’ fees this lot are nearly 4 times more.

[horlock07]

Fees go to both agent but also the auctioneer which makes them higher, plus as the buyer ends up paying the lot rather than the seller they often bump them up.

As others have said, and I can't emphasise enough, read the legals incredibly closely and do as much due diligence as you can yourself, lost count of the times I've had to try and help out people who have discovered unpleasant unforeseens after dipping their toe into the 'cheap' auction market.