Roxie Bajwa had an exciting Saturday.

The Porterville resident made a trip to the Los Angeles Convention Center for an auction of foreclosed homes. She left with a new home in Port Hueneme.

"I'm excited nervous and excited," she said just after placing the winning bid of $465,000 for the three-bedroom, two-bathroom house.

"My husband wanted to go a little lower, but I didn't want to let it go," she said.

Bajwa had been looking for a retirement home in a more temperate climate and liked the Port Hueneme neighborhood. She and her husband bought the house having peered in the windows to try to see what was inside, not having made it to recent open houses for the homes up for auction.

The Real Estate Disposition Corp., or REDC, conducted an auction for about 90 homes in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties Saturday. It has another auction today in Riverside.

Saturday's auction drew a bigger crowd than the 1,500 people REDC official Robert Friedman said the company expected.

At 8 a.m., cars were wrapped around the block to get into the parking garage. When all of the seats were taken in the room where the auction was held, people stood two and three deep along the walls.

Homes sold and then sold again throughout the day. Once someone won the highest bid, that person was taken to the area where they would work on financing and escrow documents. If something went wrong at that point if someone couldn't qualify for the loan or didn't have the down payment the deal would fall through, and the auction house would bring it back up for bid.

Prices often grew cheaper each time a home came up. A Compton home that originally sold for $285,000 later went for $235,000, then $220,000.

Frank and Mahi Hariri of Glendale placed a winning bid of $335,000 for a home in Santa Paula originally built before 1900. They found out afterward, however, that the home has several code violations. All homes in the auction are sold "as is." They backed out of the deal.

"If I buy a property, I want to live in it," Mahi Hariri said.

The couple had not seen the property before the auction.

Auction officials emphasized how important it is to research and see a property, even making an announcement at the beginning of the auction that people shouldn't bid on houses they haven't seen.

"You can make great buys at an auction, but the key is to do your homework in advance," Friedman said.

Many came to the auction looking for investment property or hoping to find a place to live for a price they could afford. Others came for the show.

The median home price for Ventura County houses and condominiums was $572,000 in April, according to information released by DataQuick Information Systems last week. Home sales are down for Southern California, hitting a 12-year low in April.

More homes for sale and more foreclosures creates an environment that encourages auctions.

Friedman said the auctions give lenders who own foreclosed properties a chance to sell quickly and buyers a chance at a deal from motivated sellers. The firm has added several more auctions in recent weeks.

In addition to the ones going on in Southern California, others are planned for Northern California, Atlanta, Denver and Houston.

Winning bidders pay what they bid for the home plus an additional 5 percent fee that goes to the auction house. They have to put 5 percent of that total down to seal the deal.

The atmosphere at Saturday's auction was lively, with the fast-paced chatter of the auctioneer and men in tuxedos mixing through the crowd to stir up excitement and help people with the bidding.

At one point, a small bidding war for a Laguna Beach home spurred excitement from the entire crowd. The bids continued to rise for the 4,000-square-foot home until they finally stopped at $1.95 million.

A home auction brings two emotional experiences together buying a house and bidding against other buyers for something you want.

Buying a home is more complex than buying a stock because it carries two values, said Michael Visser, an assistant professor of economics at Sonoma State University.

A home can be seen as an investment with some future return, but it also has a less-tangible value based on things the buyer likes or wants in the home. At an auction, both values come into play along with the bidding environment, said Visser, who has done research on auction behavior.

"Because people are risk-averse, they don't want to miss out on a potentially lucrative future deal," he said.

That means there can be more room for overbidding perhaps justifying a step or three beyond what bidders had set as their maximum bid.

On Saturday, William Morris stuck to his well-researched caps on what he would pay for investment property.

The Oxnard resident and his wife, Mary, spent the past two weekends going to open houses and came with a list of Ventura County and Los Angeles County homes and condominiums they were interested in buying.

By late Saturday afternoon, Morris still hadn't bought a property, though he had bid on some. He waited to see if one of the sales might fall through and he would have another chance to bid.

Even if he walked away empty-handed, Morris said, the auction was a good experience and he would do it again.

"I'm no worse off," he said. "People are doing good. People are saving hundreds of thousands of dollars."

On the Net:

http://www.ushomeauction.com