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Monday, October 30, 2006
Auction bandwagon starts rolling
With sales slumping, seems like everyone’s jumping on the auction bandwagon — and the ride can be a bumpy one. One auctioneer, Auctionprop, announced this month that it has moved its headquarters from London to Boca Raton.
“We’re very much in a buyer’s market now, and everyone is looking for an alternative way to sell property,” says Jeffrey Young, Auctionprop’s chief executive.
AuctionProp hosted one auction in Boca Raton on Oct. 21 and plans another Dec. 9. Meantime, Haywood Realty & Auction Co. plans an auction Nov. 11 in Palm Beach Gardens.
In a news release earlier this month, the National Auctioneers Association crowed that residential real estate makes up an ever-increasing part of its business. However, the actual numbers are modest: The release went on to say that real estate sales grew by 4.5 percent in the past year.
In calling auctions the wave of the future, auctioneers invariably point to the success of real estate auctions in Australia, where it’s a common way to buy and sell a home, not to mention the rise of eBay and the cachet of high-end auctions for art and collector cars.
Auctioneers also point to the “transparency” created by the process, meaning that bidders know who’s bidding and for how much. Tim Allen, a real estate professor at Florida Atlantic University, traveled to Australia to study auctions there and found the process a little murkier than promised.
“One auctioneer I was observing took a bid that I missed,” Allen said. “Afterwards, I asked him about it. He said the tree to my left made the bid.”
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