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Post by batchoy on Jan 23, 2014 15:09:03 GMT
- The pre-bid processing system seems to be an add-on to the normal system, and works within it. Pre-bid processing starts only after an auction has been opened for normal bidding. Since the pre-bid system checks the main system every minute, it would seem that normal bidding could be open for up to 59 seconds before the pre-bid system springs into action.
And based on previous auctions you can get a lot of £3000 bids placed in 59 seconds. I note the full report has gone up, and it talks about and attached valuation report which hasn't.
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mikes1531
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Post by mikes1531 on Jan 23, 2014 15:15:01 GMT
If the full documents aren't posted soon, I shall be pulling some of my pre-bids so that should free up a bit and there may be a few more doing the same, either that or there could be a lot of dumping on the secondary market. Based on the previous experience where the start of the auction was delayed because the documents weren't ready, I'd expect the auction to be delayed again if the documents aren't up in the next couple of hours. So I won't be pulling my pre-bids until closer to the start time. The pre-bidding facility is going to cause a real problem if the auction goes live without the documentation being released sufficiently early for lenders to consider it. And there will be complaints from lenders like batchoy who pull their pre-bids because the info is delayed and then are shut out of the auction because it is filled by lenders who placed pre-bids after them but before the info is released.
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Post by chris on Jan 23, 2014 15:33:36 GMT
- The pre-bid processing system seems to be an add-on to the normal system, and works within it. Pre-bid processing starts only after an auction has been opened for normal bidding. Since the pre-bid system checks the main system every minute, it would seem that normal bidding could be open for up to 59 seconds before the pre-bid system springs into action.
As the process that changes pre-bids into bids runs within the database as a stored procedure it runs off the databases clock. So when the auction opens at 10:00 the process is triggered and it will run on that second. Hence only checking once per minute. This is going to be an interesting test. I've been checking that it will all run fine by copying the live database to our staging environment, setting the auction start date manually, and then running the process. It's currently taking around 30 seconds to run through all the pre-bids, albeit on a much slower system than our live site. That's a bit slow for my liking so I'm going to spend the rest of today optimising it. Should be able to get it down to a couple of seconds by the end of the day (it's updating the auction stats after every bid rather than once at the end, for example). As mentioned in my first post on this the pre-bid system won't make any guarantees that it will beat a very fast finger on the day. However given the speed at which it runs (or will run by the end of today) it is likely to be a lender's best shot at joining an auction. If I have time I'll also place a lock on the system so that all pre-bids are placed before the auction starts - but I'll only do that if / when I can get the processing time down to a couple of seconds as otherwise that would adversely affect the front end website performance. Time for some more tests!
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Post by batchoy on Jan 23, 2014 15:57:00 GMT
The documents are now up. There may be an oops with the valuation as it is currently un-redacted and names names that it possibly shouldn't have.
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j
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Post by j on Jan 23, 2014 16:23:20 GMT
- The pre-bid processing system seems to be an add-on to the normal system, and works within it. Pre-bid processing starts only after an auction has been opened for normal bidding. Since the pre-bid system checks the main system every minute, it would seem that normal bidding could be open for up to 59 seconds before the pre-bid system springs into action.
As the process that changes pre-bids into bids runs within the database as a stored procedure it runs off the databases clock. So when the auction opens at 10:00 the process is triggered and it will run on that second. Hence only checking once per minute. This is going to be an interesting test. I've been checking that it will all run fine by copying the live database to our staging environment, setting the auction start date manually, and then running the process. It's currently taking around 30 seconds to run through all the pre-bids, albeit on a much slower system than our live site. That's a bit slow for my liking so I'm going to spend the rest of today optimising it. Should be able to get it down to a couple of seconds by the end of the day (it's updating the auction stats after every bid rather than once at the end, for example). As mentioned in my first post on this the pre-bid system won't make any guarantees that it will beat a very fast finger on the day. However given the speed at which it runs (or will run by the end of today) it is likely to be a lender's best shot at joining an auction. If I have time I'll also place a lock on the system so that all pre-bids are placed before the auction starts - but I'll only do that if / when I can get the processing time down to a couple of seconds as otherwise that would adversely affect the front end website performance. Time for some more tests! chris, Wouldn't it be easier & avoids any confusion or unhappy members if the pre-bids were simply converted to proper bids a few seconds or a minute before an auction goes live? It seems unfair to those who committed funds pre-hand to auction opening to have even a small chance of losing out to fast fingered live bidders. If some argue that they should have the freedom to withdraw pre-bids before an auction goes live, then a stipulation that an limit withdrawal time of pre-bids on the system say 1-2 minutes before an auction goes live.
I know that I would raise the issue if I'd placed a pre-bid on an auction before it reached 100%, within AC's guideline/maximums for that bid, & still end up with nothing to show for it.
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Post by chris on Jan 23, 2014 16:35:40 GMT
The documents are now up. There may be an oops with the valuation as it is currently un-redacted and names names that it possibly shouldn't have. Apparently this was cleared with the borrower and they are okay with it.
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Post by chris on Jan 23, 2014 16:45:21 GMT
chris, Wouldn't it be easier & avoids any confusion or unhappy members if the pre-bids were simply converted to proper bids a few seconds or a minute before an auction goes live? It seems unfair to those who committed funds pre-hand to auction opening to have even a small chance of losing out to fast fingered live bidders. If some argue that they should have the freedom to withdraw pre-bids before an auction goes live, then a stipulation that an limit withdrawal time of pre-bids on the system say 1-2 minutes before an auction goes live.
I know that I would raise the issue if I'd placed a pre-bid on an auction before it reached 100%, within AC's guideline/maximums for that bid, & still end up with nothing to show for it.
On reflection I agree with you. I've made a change that will now try and convert prebids to bids 5 minutes before the start of the auction. I've already sped it up to take around 15 seconds to process but it's going to get harder and harder to speed up from there. There'll be a couple of small index changes I can do but due to the exception handling and checks to make sure that bids are valid there's always going to be a certain amount of overhead as much as I would like it to be faster. So pre-bids will start being processed 5 minutes before the go live of the auction. If funds are not in place then it rechecks each minute until the start of the auction (in case of last minute clearance) before checking once per hour. No doubt there'll be further tweaks down the road but hopefully this will give us a smooth first auction tomorrow. In terms of all the prebids being fully funded - whilst a large majority are funded a quick (and crude) calculation suggests that there will be a percentage that are not fully funded at the start of the auction. This is of course based on the lender's current balances.
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Post by bracknellboy on Jan 23, 2014 16:53:52 GMT
This was the logical option: to process the bids pre-auction. However I suggest it needs to be made clear to people that pre-bids will be processed x amount of time prior to auction start, and therefore window to remove existing pre-bids closes at a particular point. Likewise you should probably remove the ability to place pre-bids after that point to avoid the potential of unpredictable behaviour (unless of course those placed after the initial run will still be checked immediately on auction start). But making clear deadline for removing pre bids is very important to cover yourselves.
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Post by chris on Jan 23, 2014 17:02:37 GMT
This was the logical option: to process the bids pre-auction. However I suggest it needs to be made clear to people that pre-bids will be processed x amount of time prior to auction start, and therefore window to remove existing pre-bids closes at a particular point. Likewise you should probably remove the ability to place pre-bids after that point to avoid the potential of unpredictable behaviour (unless of course those placed after the initial run will still be checked immediately on auction start). But making clear deadline for removing pre bids is very important to cover yourselves. Pre-bids placed after that point will be processed each minute up to the auction start, so there shouldn't be any funny behaviour with prebids placed after the cut off point. I'll try and get some text up on the site in time for the auction to explain that pre-bids are processed 5 minutes before the start and that they cannot be deleted after that point.
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mikes1531
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Post by mikes1531 on Jan 23, 2014 17:11:57 GMT
On reflection I agree with you. I've made a change that will now try and convert prebids to bids 5 minutes before the start of the auction. I've already sped it up to take around 15 seconds to process but it's going to get harder and harder to speed up from there. There'll be a couple of small index changes I can do but due to the exception handling and checks to make sure that bids are valid there's always going to be a certain amount of overhead as much as I would like it to be faster. So pre-bids will start being processed 5 minutes before the go live of the auction. If funds are not in place then it rechecks each minute until the start of the auction (in case of last minute clearance) before checking once per hour. No doubt there'll be further tweaks down the road but hopefully this will give us a smooth first auction tomorrow. This strikes me as a very reasonable approach. I hope it all goes smoothly tomorrow. And thanks for checking on the funding status of the pre-bids. Having taken a quick look at the valuation, I do question whether the project will be as successful as the developer hopes, but it also looks like this loan would be reasonably well secured by the property. No doubt there will be some withdrawn pre-bids and some unfunded pre-bids, but there probably will be some new ones placed as well, so it doesn't look like there will be much left for 'normal' bidders to take up.
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oldgrumpy
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Post by oldgrumpy on Jan 23, 2014 17:32:09 GMT
How many active lenders does Assetz have now (not including the big boy/underwriter backups)?
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Post by pepperpot on Jan 23, 2014 17:36:56 GMT
How many active lenders does Assetz have now (not including the big boy/underwriter backups)? My guess - 12,659 What's the prize for getting it right?
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andy2001
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Post by andy2001 on Jan 23, 2014 17:37:43 GMT
As I say we don't want due diligence to suffer nor for pre-bidding to become mandatory. Looks like it's now mandatory.
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pikestaff
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Post by pikestaff on Jan 23, 2014 17:46:57 GMT
I'll try and get some text up on the site in time for the auction to explain that pre-bids are processed 5 minutes before the start and that they cannot be deleted after that point. I think that is a very material change and you cannot guarantee that people will see the notice. Not wise.
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Post by chris on Jan 23, 2014 17:54:49 GMT
As I say we don't want due diligence to suffer nor for pre-bidding to become mandatory. Looks like it's now mandatory. At 98% full yes it's getting close, however I'd expect at least 20% to drop out due to insufficient cleared funds. Not ideal though so we will review in time for the next loan.
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