Suggested

Money and tokens return

It's very frustrating when you lose an auction and still apparently lose all the tokens and money you used to try and win.
Long story short, if you don't win you shouldn't pay for basically nothing. I'm no expert when it comes to auctions in real life, but I know for a fact that in an auction, you don't use money until you actually win the auction.

Another idea I had is to make contract negotiations (As in when recruiting) more realistic. I don't think auctions are really realistic to what actually goes on.

I can see your RL point. 

What's also frustrating is players that have 9 or more coins and know they dont have the coins to substain a prolonged auction and still choosing to bit 1 coin to start the auction just to end up loosing it by more than the 9 coins they could've purchased it to begin with.  

Seriously? You can't save your coins for 3 races? This game gives ample opportunity to have your finances under control for the most part.  

Purchasing tokens pays for the upkeep of this game....
They need to make money somehow

Exactly!