Sold! Maybe.?

I was interested briefly in one of the apartments they offered -- but the terms of the auction turned me away. The buyer has to pay 3% of the purchase price as a fee to the auction site (plus the seller pays 3%) -- so you have to add that to whatever you bid. Plus, it seems to me like you have little or no control over the contract, and have to immediately sign even if it's unfavorable (or forfeit $5000).

All that might be fine, if you were getting a bargain sufficient to make up the difference -- but I haven't seen any bargains on there. It looks like from the NY Magazine article that any bargains didn't even meet reserve prices...so the apartment didn't sell.

As a buyer, it seemed like a big risk with little chance of a real bargain. But that was just my take -- others might have a more positive reaction.

Actually the only bargain looking one appeared to be 137 Avenue C and that was commercial.
(thats after actually checking the auctionbid site)
4000 sq ft bar on the ground floor and apts above.
Went for 1.6mil and about 10 times rent roll and 400 per sq ft.

truthskr10

the 137 Avenue C property did not even sell from what I read in the above article. I would like to hear from someone who actually put in a bid on any of bidonthecity properties.

Fayek

Well at Bidonthecity.com where the auction was actually held, it says sold and closed.

Though my search on Acris doesn't show anything except for the last tranaction in 2007 with a mortgage consolidation in the area of 1.6mil.
Guess the seller doesn't want to walk away with two bits.

Truthskr10

Thanks for the info.

>How many of you would resort to auctioning off your unit....?

It's not a very auction friendly city for many reasons.

It will be really interesting to see how many would, other than banks.

So far, not many.

In 1991, Corcoran had a "one day sale event", which see describes in an interview:

http://www.carolmilano.com/bc.html

"TY: What do you see as your biggest success?

Long-term, it's the Internet. Our aggressive stance on it will prove to be the single best thing we've done. I hope I'm right - or it will be our biggest failure. Short term, it was the one-day, one-price sale. My one-day sale idea came in 1991 when I watched the farmer across the road let shoppers pick the best puppy of the litter, which she had every month. She'd invite people in twos, to fight over the pick of the litter. I saw that when they're far back in line, people will celebrate getting the runt of the litter because everyone behind them got nothing.

The real estate market was flat then, with prices dropping. Buyers felt no urgency. We had no money for advertising. So I grouped 81 apartments (different sizes, neighborhoods and views) into one batch, priced them all alike, and invited everyone on the same morning. I told my salespeople to only bring their best friends. We sold all 81 in one hour. Commissions were over $1 million. These were the same people who wouldn't have bought them the day before. It was a great gimmick to create urgency. The million-dollar commissions saved my business."

Except EVERY property which we had (remember there were a lot of open listings then) came back on the market after that event, and none of the sellers who I spoke to was very happy about being involved in the process. If someone wants to dispute my version vs Bab's, take a .look at how the number of units decreased from 263 to 81 in at least on account:

http://nymag.com/nymetro/realestate/features/1669/index4.html

"Then, in the winter of 1991, Corcoran got a call from developer Bernie Mendik: 263 apartments in seventeen postwar buildings around Manhattan just weren't selling. They were "the dregs of the earth," says Corcoran -- small and overpriced. Mendik asked Corcoran if she would take them on. The Corcoran Group slashed prices on all the apartments and announced through their brokers that they would be sold on a first-come-first-served basis in a one-day sale. The doors at each unit opened at nine o'clock, and people were lined up outside. Corcoran sold 101 apartments that day. Within four months, all the units had sold, and the Corcoran Group had taken in $1 million in commissions."

So take with a grain of salt a lot of the hype you see about how successful some of the non-traditional marketing campaigns can be. As jdas points out, the majority of successful RE auction in this area have come from banks offloading REO.

30 yrs real estate:

Thanks for the in depth explanation on the above Bidonthecity.com concept!

At first it seemed like a brilliant stradegy, now not so much anymore...!

I see urbandigs gave them a mention as well.
I wouldn't think of participating unless their "starting bid" would bind them to a sale.

Exactly. As long as they can change their mind, what's the point of wasting our time biding.

Am I doing something wrong or are there very few properties listed?