Interest In Detroit Home Auction Sends Site Crashing During Bidding War

DETROIT (WWJ) - An online bidding war sparked growing interest — crashing a Detroit auction website.

WWJ City Beat Reporter Vickie Thomas says overwhelming interest in the home purchase process caused the site to go down Friday as two people were reportedly in a bidding war over a property on Chicago.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said both men bid $135,000, which is a new high for the auction.

"They both had bid exactly one hundred and thirty five thousand dollars and then the site crashed," said Duggan. "So we couldn't very well declare one a winner and not the other. So, I'm not saying they are thrilled with it but they understand there was no other way to handle it."

"So many people were watching it - it crashed the website - so we are going to have to rebid the house on Friday. We've let anybody in the public come in and watch and we just didn't anticipate it - that somehow between Twitter and Facebook the whole world would be logging onto the website at the same time these two guys are trying to bid, but we'll try it again on Friday."

Duggan said the city plans to enhance the capacity of the website so they can handle more traffic.

In May, WWJ reported that the city of Detroit's effort to get vacant homes back on the tax roll was being expanded, and new communities were being added to the online auction. See all the listings HERE. Bids are accepted online only. [See the complete rules of bidding HERE].