We’ve noticed a few interesting news reports in the last month or so that suggest online auctions are about to get “real.” As in, real estate-real. As in, people are auctioning off furnished homes on the Internet.
That’s right. An auction timer is currently counting down on a remodeled home in the Phoenix metro, owned by one Todd Talbot. It’s currently 32 days from shifting into the same timer-gets-reset-if-you-bid-with-20-seconds-left model that QuiBids currently employs. We’re watching this auction with a lot of curiosity because — as far as we know — it’s the first time anybody’s tried selling a home through an entertainment auction format before. Who knows what’ll happen?
We’ve done some pretty big items on QuiBids in the past, even a Honda Civic, but we’ve never sold anything valued at six digits (the home was appraised in 2010 as being worth over $127,000) before. Talbot’s installed a handful of rules around the auction, some of which are similar to QuiBids and some of which aren’t. Let’s have a quick look at what he’s set up.
Like QuiBids
- A bid costs 60 cents.
- The auction price increases by one cent every time somebody places a bid.
- You must create an account to participate.
- There are incentives for bidding. But they’re different from our Buy Now feature. See below.
Not like QuiBids
- The number of seats in this auction is limited to 1,000. As of when this was blog post went live, only 17 were taken.
- A seat costs $150, and includes 500 bids. It appears that customers will be able to purchase further bid packs at 60 cents per bid.
Check out these news stories and/or watch the video below for more information.

