Because sometimes there's a tie

They can still do that through proxy buyers. If you go to enough auctions, it's easy enough to pick them out.

I mean, my wife and I didn't sell to the two highest bidders on our first house because the fuckers were obviously going to rent it out.

One was a bid entered by a piece of software often used by flippers and rental companies (had branding at the bottom of the pages etc) and the other was a cash in hand bid with an overt offer of more under the table, which is fairly illegal where we live.

We selected third place, someone who had messy handwriting, obviously has been written by two different people, and ended the bid with "777" which was cute and showed us not only were they human, they really wanted the place. And no wonder, with offers like the first two likely happening on nearly every sale in the area.

Never any history of racial segregation in the housing market, nope. No Sir. Never.

Yes but we had our fair share of assholes

There have been auctions in the past, mostly farm, that the community got together to drive off outsiders and then proceed to lowball every item on the auction. They would then return everything to the owner after the auction.

It was a fine 'fuck you' to the bank, until the bank closed or sold out because they no longer had the assets and cash reserves needed to stay open themselves. Which then screwed the rest of the community over.

Not in France. If the tenant wants it, the tenant gets it