Daily Real Estate News  |  June 26, 2008  |   More Homes Selling to the Highest Bidder
Increasing numbers of developers are using auctions to unload inventory and to jumpstart sales of new condos or single-family developments where nervous potential buyers are dubious about the market value.

''Real estate auctions are the fastest growing sector of the live auction industry,'' says Chris Longly, a spokesman for the National Auctioneers Association.

Gross sales revenues from auctions of residential, commercial, and industrial real estate grew by about 5.2 percent in 2007, to $32.6 billion, according to the association. Auctions of condos are growing especially quickly. Accelerated Marketing Partners, a real estate marketing firm with headquarters in Boston and Danville, Calif., has held 25 auctions thus far in 2008; in 2007, it held two all year.

The weak market has also spurred conventional real estate companies to use auctions. Chad Roffers, the president of SKY Sotheby's International Realty, added auctions to its marketing strategies in Florida almost two years ago and has conducted 11 in the last year.

''We saw the need,'' he says. ''We saw the marketplace changing. We saw inventory levels building, and we saw buyers becoming more conservative and less decisive.''

Source: The New York Times, Alison Gregor (06/25/2008)