Going, going ... sold
Published Friday, September 29th, 2006
Tri-City Herald
By Mary Hopkin, Herald staff writer
It took Bill and Dreama Gibson less than 20 minutes to sell their riverview Burbank home.
They could have gone the traditional route -- listing it with an agent, showing it to a myriad of buyers, waiting for offers, making counter offers and stressing about whether the sale will fall through.
Instead, the Gibsons put their home on the auction block and held three open houses. Eight days ago, a handful of potential buyers bid against each other for it.
"I have a friend whose mother has auctioned off three properties and she said there is no better way to do it," said Dreama Gibson. "And if you think about it, when you put a house on the market for $300,000, what are you going to get?"
If you are lucky, your asking price. More likely, something less.
But the possibilities are limitless when you put it up for auction, she said.
Residential real estate auctions are the fastest growing segment of the auction industry, according to statistics from a study commissioned by the National Auctioneers Association.
In 2005, the number of residential real estate auctions had grown by 8.4 percent over the pervious year, with sales reaching $14.2 billion. That's still less than 1 percent of the overall U.S. real estate market, however.
Doug Macon of Macon Brothers Auctioneers in Walla Walla said the Gibson auction was the sixth residential real estate auction it has conducted this year. He said they're becoming more popular.
"I think the auction system has become more well-known for the general public," he said. "Since e-Bay formed, there is greater public knowledge, recognition and trust of auctions. And generally speaking, what we are finding in today's market, the auctions are generally meeting or exceeding appraised valuation."
For Dreama Gibson, whose husband has been living in Louisiana working on Hurricane Katrina relief efforts since January, the auction was a simple way to simplify their lives, not just sell a home.
The couple are downsizing from the spacious home where Bill and his sons worked together on cars in the massive shop and Dreama stored 50 years of knickknacks and Thomas Kincade art to an RV in which they plan to travel to visit kids and grandchildren.
Macon Brothers Auction compiled the rest of the couple's stuff onto 15-page list that included coin sets, a big screen television, fishing equipment, a neon chrome Elvis Presley wall clock, a couple of transmissions and an artificial Christmas tree with stand.
Mark Kraft of Pasco placed the winning bid of $308,000 for the 2,200-square-foot home and 5,000-square-foot shop on 2.4 acres with a panoramic view of the Columbia River and McNary National Wildlife Refuge.
A 10 percent buyer's premium is added to the sale price as well as closing costs, so you have to watch what you bid, said Kraft, who bought the home where he now lives at auction in 1992. The Gibson house isn't for him, he said, it's for his parents who are moving to the Mid-Columbia from Western Washington.
Merle Booker of Booker Auctions and a partner in Western Real Estate Auctions has been conducting real estate auctions for more than 20 years. He said real estate auctions allow people to not only get a fair market value for their home, but more importantly, they allow people to get on with their lives.
Professional auctioneers focus a lot of attention on the real estate they are listing. They print brochures, put information on their Web sites, do mailings and heavily advertise the auctions. The properties don't get buried in a sea of real estate listings for an indefinite period of time.
The real estate auction may be difficult for some buyers, Booker admitted.
"One of the things Realtors do very well is walking someone through the whole process and developing that rapport," he said. "We walk people through the auction process, tell them they need to talk to lenders and get qualified. But in the end, they have to be there and be willing to raise their hand."
Booker said although the trend has been slow to catch on here, residential real estate auctions are thriving in other areas. In March, Booker helped Maine auctioneer Dick Keenan sell condominium shares for the Steamboat Grand resort in Colorado. In about six hours, all of the condos were sold for $24.5 million and 182 bidders participated online.
Macon said he has conducted nearly 50 residential real estate auctions and they are especially effective when it comes to selling unique properties.
"We did one for the Columbia Basin College Foundation that was a home on the river that appraised for around $222,000 and the property sold for $587,000," he said.
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/business/story/8255594p-8152237c.html
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