# Controlled auction (limited auction)

A sale run to a short invited list of buyers on the seller's timetable.

It changes what you are doing from negotiating to bidding, and most [searchers](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/searcher) meet one without being told that is what it is. The tells are a banker instead of a broker, a dated process letter, and a request for a first-round number before you have met the owner. Two consequences follow. Your edge is no longer being the only buyer at the table, so it has to be certainty and speed instead. And the price is set by whoever is least disciplined in the room, which is a reason to write your walk-away number down before the first round and not after it.

In numbers: A buyer who fixes 3.4x as the walk-away before the first round leaves at 3.6x; one who fixes it afterwards is still in the room at 4.1x, because in an auction the price is set by whoever is least disciplined.

Source: https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/controlled-auction
Not dated: A definition is editorial: what a term means, why it matters, and an example. None of it reads a source that can go stale, so there is no date to take and a stamped one would be the build time wearing a costume.

Site index for machines: https://searchspheresource.com/llms.txt