House auctions take off as high-priced home sales slow
Wish this was true for the lower end of the market as well. According to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required):
After Joe Greene's Tennessee mansion sat on the market for a year without so much as an offer, he decided to take drastic measures: He put the $2.5 million house and its 30 acres of countryside up for auction -- and got about $1 million less than he'd hoped. "Of course, you always want more," says the health-care executive, who'd already bought another home.
Going ... going ... gone. With the upper end of the housing market slowing in many places, the pace of house auctions nationwide has surged -- mostly thanks to owners of big-ticket properties who never dreamed they'd end up selling this way. Overall, 2001 auction sales were up 30% since the mid-1990s to a record $54.5 billion, according to Bloomington, Ind., research firm the Gwent Group. Auction houses say the trend is merely building this year, mostly on trophy-home sales. "Everyone's gone from thinking they're infinitely rich to thinking, 'What am I doing with this house?' " says Steven L. Good, chairman and chief executive of Chicago auction house Sheldon Good & Co., where sales of high-end homes are expected to hit $56 million this year.
Part of the appeal for sellers, of course, is the chance for a quick sale. At a time when pricey houses are lingering 18 months or more on the market, an auction can take as little as six weeks from start to finish. That's a big plus for cash-strapped homeowners. "It cost $2,800 a month just to mow my lawns," says Beverly Moffatt, who recently sold her 29-room place in Oregon at auction. Another factor: In the boom years, many people built what auctioneers delicately refer to as "overpersonalized" homes -- from a 23,000- square-foot mansion plunked down in an otherwise modest Baltimore suburb to an "earthship" built into the side of a mountain in Colorado. "It was a bit special," says Francois Raab, who got $350,000 at auction for that house.