Auctioneer Bob Packer said, "I'll tell you what I'm gonna do ... I wasn't going to do this", before pulling a wooden mallet from his jacket then declaring, "I'll take just $1000 over the bid".
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There were no takers.
On Saturday morning, Mr Packer, of Ray White Albury Central, was driving the auction of a four-bedroom Thurgoona house on Honeysuckle Street that had drawn no bids.
A vendor's bid of $670,000 was placed by Mr Packer while the crowd of about 10 watched on - but didn't raise a hand or twitch a finger.
"I can't go any smaller than that," Mr Packer said. "$670,000, and with that, we're only a bid away from making it tick on the market.
"OK, we 're going to pass the property in and talk to you folks outside of auction conditions."
It was not known late on Saturday afternoon whether the property sold after any negotiations.
The Thurgoona house sitting on 667 square metres was one of three homes in Albury-Wodonga earmarked for auction on February 17.
Closer to the Albury CBD, a three-bedroom, two-bathroom brick home at Rivergum Drive, East Albury, was also passed in just two hours later at midday.
Before bidding started, auctioneer Nicholas Clark, of Stean Nicholls Real Estate, told The Border Mail on the sidelines he expected the property to be passed in.
Mr Clark said lengthy finance approval times were sometimes stifling the auction market.
"We've had some good numbers here on this one," Mr Clark said. "But I'm anticipating passing this one in today.
"The biggest problem at the moment is the length of time that it takes to get finance approved. We usually run auction campaigns have for four weeks and then have the auction in the fourth week.
"But we're finding that approval ratings are taking five to six weeks. What we're seeing at the moment is of those properties that are passing in, in 90% of those are selling in the two weeks post auction,
"It's usually that you've identified the buyer, but it just takes a little bit more time to get things across the line."
Thirteen people had gathered at the site, but with no takers - and no vendor bid placed - Mr Clark passed the property in.
Mr Clark later contacted The Border Mail to confirm a buyer was negotiating a price with the vendor but that a settlement hadn't been reached at 4pm.
Also in East Albury, a four-bedroom, two-bathroom brick house at 515 Milro Avenue, scheduled to be auctioned at 11.30am on Saturday, was under contract.
