One of the newest auctions to make its way on to FRE’s global online auction market is a classic contemporary,  1 bedroom/1 bathroom condominium in the River Towers of Downtown Minneapolis. While conveniently located only a stones throw from the Mississippi River, the towers are only a short distance from the Skyway, University of Minnesota and Minneapolis Central Library.

The bid deadline for this property is coming up on April 28th, at 5:00 PM local time and what’s more, the Minimum Bid is only $45,000 so you better move quick.  Visit the auction webpage to see all of the details, download documents, and to view more photos at FRE.com

Related Posts:

• Luxury Condo Auction Featured in TopTenRealEstateDeals.com
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• Unprecedented Online Auction for 80+ Twin Cities Area Properties Enters Final Stretch
• Land Auction in Bemidji, MN: Bank-Owned Resort Development

One of the newest auctions to launch on the Freedom Realty Exchange online market place is the bank-ordered bulk auction of 10 residential lots. These lots are located on the 18th hole of the Antelope Valley Country Club in Palm Dale, CA and five of the lots offer backyard views of the golf course. An average lots is  approximately 25,572 Sq. Ft. and the entire development is a total of  +/-5.9 acres. Originally intended as a gated community (still a possibility), these lots are semi-finished with all utilities brought to the site, including existing water meters.

This bank-owned property MUST SELL and the bank has set an aggressive Minimum Bid of  just $299,000! The Bid Deadline for this auction is coming up on April 21st at 5:00 PM PDT so check out the auction webpage for more details, documents and photos at www.FRE.com/102.

A new Never Lose a Listing® property has been brought to Online Auction on FRE.com. This auction is for an +/-3.5 acre view lot is located at the end of a cul-de-sac in the prestigious “Heathers” section of Kohala Ranch on the Big Island of Hawaii. The level building site affords lovely ocean views, exceptional privacy and ease of construction.

Kohala Ranch Heathers offers the benefits of great weather and close proximity to the Resorts and amenities on the Kohala Coast including the best beaches on the island.

The property owner is highly motivated to sell and has set an aggressive Minimum Bid and Bid Deadline. For more information please visit the auction webpage, www.FRE.com/3069-1. Below is some general information regarding the auction:

I wanted to highlight one of FRE.com’s newest Online Auctions of a 4 bedroom/3 bathroom home that  has had a complete and stylish remodel. Located in the prestigious Deerfield subdivision of Plano, Texas, this 3,575 square foot home has a spacious 3 car garage, a sparkling pool,  a large kitchen with an island, and a Texas-sized family room to boot. There’s a great flow through home and the c-shaped floor plan allows flexibility for either a traditional or contemporary design.

Recent upgrades include wood floors, granite counters, stainless appliances, carpet/tile, lighting & fixtures/hardware, gunite pool resurface, pool heater, board on board fence, interior and exterior paint and so much more.

The Minimum Bid is only $222,000 and the Bid Deadline is coming up on Thursday, March 24th, 2011 so check out all of the property documents, details, pictures and all of the auction information at FRE.com.

A new survey from Fannie Mae reveals that the traditional patterns of homeownership are shifting around the country. Housing Wire’s Christine Ricciardi wrote up the most interesting findings from the survey:

Although 51% of survey respondents said the housing crisis has not affected their overall willingness to buy a home, 33% said they would be more likely to rent their next home than buy. In January, 30% of Americans surveyed said they would rent a home the next time around.

Overall, 89% of homeowners, as well as 49% of renters, feel they would be better off owning a home in the current economy. However, Fannie Mae found that the homeownership rate among young adults (ages 25 to 29) decreased 11% “since peak rates” before the housing crisis.

Married couples are the most likely to own a home. However, Fannie Mae said that portion of the population is increasingly shrinking — down to 50% of households in 2009 from 56% in 1990.

The survey found that 58% of single-mothers rent. Seventy-eight percent of survey respondents cited children as a major reason to own a home.

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The Bid Deadline for the lender-ordered Online Auction of 4 luxury condos in Big Sky, MT is only 7 days away, and TopTenRealEstateDeals.com caught onto the deal heat and featured the auction on their home page. Top Ten takes a look at 10 of the hottest condo deals currently going on in the country, and the Condos at Elk Horn Creek were listed at #6.

Here’s a small exerpt from the post:

Outstanding opportunity to grab a great vacation condo in a great location at a once in a lifetime price! There are only four going up for auction under sealed bid. These won’t last long so you need to contact the auction company and not let this slip through your fingers. And the snow conditions for the New Year are perfect. So much for global warming this winter – almost anywhere in the country. But this is the place to ski! You’re also near Yellowstone National Park where the entire family and all your guests will love to explore. Perfect place for city folks to shake off the effects of way too much concrete! Of course once you become accustomed to fresh air, you’ll wonder why you stayed in the city so long! This is the wakeup call. Don’t let these beautiful ski homes pass you by! Four upscale condos – bids start $299k – were priced to $995k.

View the complete Online Auction and all of the property details, photos and documents at LFC.com.

Original Post: New Online Auction For Montana Resort Condos

March was a month that took many real estate professionals by surprise. According to Austin Kilgore with Housing Wire, national housing sales rose 6.8% over February’s sales. The New York Times reported that the Western Region of the country did exceptionally well as sales rose 17%. Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Indices came out this week and showed that the overall home prices were up in the month of February.However, a report in Agent Genius Magazine says, “Where it gets mixed up is that despite this being the first time since 2006 that the annual rates of change for both [the 10-city and 20-city] composites are positive, more than half of the cities in the larger composite experienced price declines.”

Real estate professionals are speculating this recent uptick in sales is greatly due in part to the federal home buyer tax credit that expires at the end of April 2010. Prospective home buyers are moving off the sidelines to cash in on the low interest rates and potential $8,000-$6,500 tax incentive ending soon. However, Alan Ziebler reports “doubts remain about whether the momentum will be sustained in the second half of the year when federal support is gone.”

States such as California, are initiating their own home buyer’s tax credit in an attempt to maintain the momentum of residential real estate sales. According to the California Franchise Tax Board, “These tax credits are limited to the lesser of 5 percent of the purchase price or $10,000 for a qualified principal residence.” Though this incentive can provide eligible home buyers more than the federal tax credit, the California state tax credit will not last forever and is scheduled to end on August 1, 2011.

Obviously, there is a short window where buyers can capitalize on some real estate deals that probably won’t present themselves for several decades to come. Interest rates are at record lows and tax credits are offering those in a financial pinch a lot of help. The real estate market is overstocked with a supply of REO’s and short sales just waiting to get off the bank’s books. With so many factors piling up in the buyer’s favor, what else would it take to get more buyers to move forward with purchasing in the market?

Will the market continue its gradual stablization or will the real estate market take a double-dip once the government stops offering incentives? What are some of your market thoughts and speculations?

In this third post of our series on Using Online Auctions, I will discuss why online real estate auctions are a superior marketing tactic compared to traditional outcry auctions. The LFC Group of Companies is in a unique position to address this topic, having spent the majority of the last 30 years auction residential real estate, commercial property and land through an outcry format. However, after recognizing the shifting trend in commerce, LFC left outcry auctions behind to begin auctioning property exclusively online in 2004.

Here are a few reason why the outcry auction format falls short and why online auctions are the new industry standard:

• The Internet has a global reach, yielding the broadest possible market exposure.
• Bidders never need to leave home or work to attend the auction.
• Online auctions offer a fair and transparent process.
• All documentation can be downloaded electronically.
• LFC’s online auctions typically run 30-45 days, allowing all interested bidders to take their time and make an informed decision before placing a bid.
• Using the Internet as an open information source allows bidders to decide a property’s true real estate value for themselves.
• People are increasingly comfortable making purchases online.
• And best of all, no auctioneers are yelling and pressuring you as deliberate on one of the biggest financial decisions of your life.

Previous Posts in the Using Online Auction Series:

• Minimum Bids, Reserve Auctions, & Absolute Auctions
• Using Online Auctions: Busting the Auction Myth
• Reaching Tech-savvy Buyers

Every time the LFC Group of Companies begins an online auction, I’ll write a blog post describing the city and region for that specific property. This requires some extensive research, which is often helped by the increasingly common social media presence of many towns across the country, both big and small. Towns like Spartanburg, South Carolina, Bemidji, Minnesota, and Paso Robles, California are doing a fantastic job utilizing social media to connect with local residents and visitors, and of course, simultaneously aiding real estate professionals like myself (a much appreciated unintended consequence!).

Take a look at the quality of material, the consistency in appearance across all of their accounts, and, most importantly, their engagement with followers/fans/viewers.

• Spartanburg, SC: Facebook Twitter YouTube Flickr
• Bemidji, MN: Facebook Twitter
• Paso Robles, CA: Facebook Twitter YouTube Delicious Flickr

Resources such as the chamber of commerce, visitor’s bureau or a city’s home page can be a huge help to better understanding all of our auction locations from a local’s perspective.

What are some of the ways your city is participating in social media? What do you like/dislike and why?Related Posts

• Coming Soon: Online Auction in Spartanburg, South Carolina
• Land Auction in Bemidji, MN: Bank-Owned Resort Development
• REO Auction for Land Parcels in Central California

Yesterday, April 1st, was the Bid Deadline for the online auction of a luxury home in Peoria, Arizona. However, the property’s seller has invoked LFC’s patented LAST CALL® process in order to extended the Bid Deadline until Monday, April 5th. The auction’s current high bid is now published and every bid hereafter will be displayed in real time. If another bid IS taken before Monday’s deadline, the auction will be extended until Tuesday. These twenty-four hour extensions will continue until no more bids are placed.

I recently explained the LAST CALL® bidding process (which is currently running) in the online auction for commercial property in Orland, California and in that post, I wrote about the LAST CALL® bidding in another one of our commercial real estate auctions in Columbus, Ohio. In short, LAST CALL® was created to prevent people from losing an auction due to someone placing a bid in the final seconds before the deadline. Here is how I explained LAST CALL® in previous posts:

LAST CALL® protects bidders from auction sniping. If you are familiar with other online auctions sites such as eBay, you know that everyone interested in the auction waits until the very last second to place their bid. There is even software that will automatically enter a bid in the last millisecond of the auction, what we call “auction sniping.” LAST CALL® protects bidders by eliminating the possibility of “sniping.” Real estate is a rather large investment to make online and we strive to give all bidders a fair chance at winning. Understanding that real estate is a rather [heavily strategized move] to make online, we made the LAST CALL® extension increment 24 hours to give bidders plenty of time to deliberate.

I invite you to follow this auction closely as bidders compete for the property. You can join in the conversation and stay informed about this online auction by following us on Twitter. If you have any questions pertaining to LAST CALL® or this auction, feel free to leave a comment.

Happy Friday and good luck bidders!

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