For the second consecutive day, the auction for Laguna Niguel's iconic Ziggurat goes on thanks to a bid five minutes before deadline.
The auction entered its fifth month on Tuesday, Oct. 1 with the General Services Administration auction site showing "Bidder #02'''s last-moment bid upping the price by the minimum $300,000 increment. "Bidder #01" quickly countered with a similar price hike for the pyramid-shaped Chet Holifield Federal Building and surrounding land that's no longer needed by the federal government.
The same back-and-forth bidding, also five minutes before the auction would have ended, occurred on Monday.
Here's what you need to know about the online auction that began June 5 for a prime south Orange County real estate opportunity ...
Latest price: $168 million or 140% above the $70 million initial asking price.
Next deadline: 2:20 PM on October 2. If the highest bid is topped in a 24-hour period, the deadline is extended by another 24 hours.
Activity: 126 bids on 46 days - 36 days with just 2 bids.
Size: 116 bids at the $300,000 minimum increment with the largest move a $24.7 million increase on June 5.
Bidders: Three unidentified participants, dubbed "#01" with 64 bids, "#02" with 48 bids, and "#03" with 14.
Drama: Of the 32 days the auction was extended with bid an hour or less before deadline, the closest call were the last two days.
Extra time: There's been a $31.2 million price bump since the original July 31 deadline. That's 23% more thanks to this "soft close" auction's arrangement.