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Comment by TimPC | Hacker News Reader

The one advantage of blind bidding is the slowness. You’re able to consult with everyone you need to between bids. In a live auction you might not get to call your family before having to decide if you want to go $10k higher. Even if your wife is there you don’t have time for an extended discussion on whether it’s worthwhile.

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This makes me wonder why not just use a one-time second price auction? In that case everyone just needs to huddle up with their family once, submit their maximum price for the house, and know that they won't have a risk of over-paying relative to everyone else's valuation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickrey_auction

I would guess most sellers would not want to do this

Wouldn’t people set a maximum ceiling beyond which they would not go? Like you make your initial bid, which would not be the maximum and you go up till you win or you hit your max.

If you bade your maximum already then obviously you’re out of contention.

I have found straight up bidding to be a much slower process. You don't have to immediately respond, if an estate agent is applying pressure you should just ignore them and respond with your bid when you're ready.

On the other side if the sellers aren't happy with the highest bid they can just keep waiting for more people to turn up.

Getting rid of blind bidding doesn't mean it's replaced with a live real-time auction.

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