The fact that a bank can be sold off in "the next few days" yet it takes the average person 30 days minimum to close on a house...

They’ve also created new banks in the past (presumably when they can’t facilitate a shotgun marriage).

E.g. the first big bank failure in 2008, and the 3rd largest failure ever (after WaMu and now SVB), IndyMac became OneWest

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bank_failures_in_the...

> On March 19, 2009, a seven-member investor group, IMB Holdco, led by Steven Mnuchin—which included billionaire Christopher Flowers, John Paulson, Michael Dell, and George Soros—purchased Independent National Mortgage Corporation (IndyMac Bank) of Pasadena, California for $13.65 billion from the FDIC and created OneWest from the remains of IndyMac

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OneWest_Bank

In this case they created a new bank. From an outsider's perspective, it implies the bank run was either too sudden, or SVB would have been too expensive, for FDIC to be able to run an expedited auction.

In one of the earlier two threads a poster linked to this segment of 60 Minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAE8i40A5uI . (I would link to the comment directly but I can't find it right now. Apologies to the poster.) In case of a relatively small bank, the FDIC had run a secret auction a few days earlier, and had an acquirer ready on the day.

SVB was pretty big. Lining up a buyer that can absorb and handle a balance of ~$200B might take a while, and interestingly there may be political reasons to discourage depositor haircuts. Buying at firesale prices favours those with deep enough pockets. Buying at par (or near enough) needs more than just money - it gives advantage to those who can do extensive diligence really fast.