An Unique Bidding System.Properties & Gold at Cheap Prices !
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Came across this concept this morning and was very curious.
I dont think anyone in Singapore has done it yet though.
What's interesting is this.
Most items (Properties, gold bars, to name a few) are sold off at just a teeny fraction of their prices. and is very much legit.
And the items are sold at their LOWEST BID !
I am talking abt a whole house at maximum bid : £9000.00
Or gold Buillion coins at Maximum Bid: £35.00
To read up more,
http://www.humraz.com/
Roughly how it works...
Lowest Unique Bid
The lowest price you can bid with us is £0.01 and the highest, 5% of the property's market value.
To succeed in our auctions your bid must be unique (the only one at that price) and when the auction closes, it must also be the lowest! (please see the example on the right panel). If you have the lowest unique bid at the end of a successful auction, this is the price you will pay for the property.
All bids are sealed, so other bidders do not know what you have bid. This means that unlike most online auctions, once you have the winning bid, sniping is less of a worry, as knocking out a winning bid just before an auction closes is harder to do if you don't know what it is.
For each auction, we send online and SMS bidders notification if an auction's closing date is set. However, with our auctions you don't need to bid just before an auction closes to win.
Buying Property from Us
Another key feature of our auctions is that your successful bid will allow you to fix the price you will pay and there are no penalties if you change your mind about the purchase.
However, we doubt that you will as all our properties are very carefully selected. We look for homes that we would be happy to own, in terms of condition and location, and we believe to be excellent starter homes or investments.
We are not agents, we do not sell on behalf of others because we do not want to risk the possibility of a seller changing their mind.. -
The Reason for their beginning...
Why?
by HUMRAZ on Sat 20 Jan 2007 16:28 GMT
We've received a number of emails asking us why are we doing this... (I'm sure there is subtext to this question, but I am not going to jump to conclusions.)
The answer is actually quite simple. Watching my older two children struggle to buy their first homes was quite painful. It seemed like a constant game of catchup. House prices rising faster than they could save for a deposit. Salaries rising too slowly to get them the mortgages they needed.
When we started to look at developing an online business model, we specifically wanted to come up with something that addressed the issue of spiralling house prices. It took us a while (over a year) but we were convinced that we could come up with a business that would help a few fortunate people own a home of their own.
The property auctions on the Humraz website do just that.
The auctions are self-funding, in that the £3/bid charge for bid status messages allows us to sell the properties at ludicrously low prices, as long as enough people participate by bidding online or by SMS. To help, we've kept the status message charge low, £3/bid. When we did the analysis this was the amount that was low enough to be palatable and still provide people with a good chance of winning. Additionally, by paying for updates bidders are able to actively influence their chance of winning.
Also, we've partnered with Warchild UK as we think it is a fantastic cause. So instead of paying an estate agent, we'll donate at least 2.5% of each property's full market value to them.
Can't thing of anything else to add really... Hopefully this answers the why, the how and the what? -
now imagine the implications if we were to bring this to Singapore...
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An article in Times
From The Times
May 19, 2007
Strike gold with a penny punt
Mark Bridge
Online auctions are known for bargains – tales of cut-price Ming and Meissen on eBay are commonplace. But a gold bar going for a penny? This month Paul Myring, of Bishop’s Stortford, bagged this scarcely believable buy at Humraz.com, the new “lowest unique bid” auction website that looks poised to offload a £180,000 apartment in Surrey for less than £100.
The word “auction” is possibly misleading. Because while these sales are not, technically, classified as gambling, taking part is about chance, with an element of skill. The winner is the person who has placed the lowest unmatched bid when the auction closes. Placing the lowest bid possible is no sure-fire solution. Mr Myring was exceptionally lucky that no other punter chanced a 1p bid.
The site tells users the £3 range in which the current lowest unique bid sits. At the time of writing, the lowest unique bid on the two-bedroom flat in Woking is between £9.01 and £12. The leading bid on a 5oz gold bar worth about £1,700, meanwhile, is somewhere between 1p and £3.
Where Humraz differs from most low-bid auctions is in its system of updates and alerts. When you bid online or by text, you are told by e-mail or SMS whether or not you have the current lowest unique bid. You are also updated on the bid’s status, so are told when it no longer leads. This gives you the chance to have another attempt, but adds an incentive to make multiple bids, with fees of £3 a time.
Under the terms and conditions, it is possible to make free postal bids – in reality, for the cost of postage and a postcard. These do not entitle you to status updates but give you a slim shot at the property ladder for a tenth of the cost of a regular online or text bid. Follow the site’s terms and conditions link for details.
Asmat Monaghan, who founded the site, aims to close the property auction when it has generated the funds to cover the costs of the flat and its sale. While she is confident that this will happen soon, Humraz reserves the right to close the auction before sufficient funds have been raised. If this happens, 60 per cent of the proceeds will go to the War Child charity and the winner will receive £3,000.
A site with a longer track record, but promising lesser riches, is Auctionair.co.uk, which offers lowest-bid sales of items from iPods to holidays and cars. The site does not give bid status, but Duncan Hilleary, the chief executive, says that alerts may be introduced. Last week Joanne Hardy, of Brighton, paid £58, plus an £8 bid fee, for a £1,800 Cartier watch. Ms Hardy has not used other online auctions but was attracted by the chance to bid for something for which she would not consider paying the full price. “It’s great fun,” she says.
CASE STUDY: Strike gold with a penny punt
Olivia ten Kate is hoping that the property auction on the Humraz website will enable her to afford the unaffordable.
The 24-year-old PA is living in rented accomodation in Chiswick, West London, and says that all she could buy at this stage would be a bedsit. She has made 15 online bids for the flat in Surrey, for a total of nearly £50, and receives updates by text. She has no plans to move to Woking if she wins and says that she would probably rent out the prize property.
Ms ten Kate read the site’s small print and is aware of the risk that the flat will not be sold, but she believes that the chance of a shot at such a life-changing prize was too good to miss. “It’s an excellent idea,” she says, “and a bit addictive.” -
