Residential Real Estate Auctions

Located on the north end of Washington D.C. along Rhode Island Ave. NE, a sales representative with RE/MAX Specialists has brought a  property with over 20 rooms to online auction with the Never Lose a Listing® program on FRE.com.  The property’s suggested value is $800,000, however, this unique building is being offered at a fraction of its suggested value with a minimum bid of just $470,000.

The stunning brick exterior, high traffic location, and variety of potential uses make this online auction an incredible investment opportunity. Fourteen bedrooms and eight bathrooms presents the option to remodel and utilize this building as a bed & breakfast, school, adult nursing/daycare facility, or office space.

Visit the auction webpage at www.FRE.com/3137L1 in order to view all of the property photos, download auction documents, and view the full property description. Just remember, you have to move quick because the Bid Deadline has been scheduled for Thursday, May 26th at 5:00pm EDT!

Property Highlights:

• Minimum Bid is just $470,000
• Aggressive Bid Deadline of Thursday, May 26 at 5pm EDT
• 7,700 SF on a 11,258 SF lot
• Variety of potential uses

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.

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

Exciting news! LFC’s Vice President Shawn Miller has been chosen to speak at the upcoming “Best Practices in Short Sales and REO” conference in San Diego next month. Shawn will be part of a panel titled “Overcoming the Biggest Challenges in REO Today.” Click here to see who else will be joining Shawn.

The conference is being put on by Mortgage Servicing News, and will be held at the  San Diego Westin. Shawn’s panel is scheduled for Wednesday, November 9 at 2:30pm. If you happen to be in town, stop by the Westin to hear some of the industry’s leading experts discuss the most pressing issues affecting the market today.

FRE.com is currently hosting two auctions for bank-owned homes in San Jose, California. his bank-ordered auction is a great opportunity to take advantage of bargain prices and purchase your next home in the highly desirable San Jose neighborhood of Willow Glen.

A small town in the middle of San Jose, Willow Glen offers quality schools and plenty of cultural and recreational activities. The community is lush with tree-lined streets, and the Lincoln Avenue downtown area features sidewalk cafes, Italian delis, home design stores and clothing boutiques. Despite the influx of corporate stores like Starbucks and Peets, most Lincoln Avenue stores remain locally owned and operated businesses, adding to the town’s charm.

Check out some details on the two properties below.

Auction #401-2: Beautiful Brand New Home

This gorgeous, brand new home sits on a private street just blocks from downtown Willow Glen in San Jose, CA. The 4 bed, 2.5 bath house consists of ±1,994 square feet and features a 2-car garage and high end materials throughout. The two-floor home features an open floor plan, hardwood floors, crown molding and wainscoting, and Milgard windows. The spacious master bedroom suite has a fireplace, walk-in closet, jetted tub and separate shower. The home’s kitchen features Alderwood cabinets, stainless steel appliances and slab granite countertops.

Auction #401-1: Remodeled Victorian Home

This beautifully restored and remodeled 3 bed, 2 bath single family residence consists of ±1,449 square feet of living space and features a detached garage and spacious open floor plan. The home represents a unique combination of old world charm with high quality modern amenities, including an impressive foyer, wood molding throughout, a new fireplace, remodeled baths, and hardwood floors. The gorgeous kitchen features cherry cabinets, glass displays, recessed lights, stainless appliances and slab granite countertops.

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

In this next post in our Using Online Auctions series, I’ll dispel a common myth that real estate auctions are only suited for distressed properties. In fact, online auctions are perfectly suited for sellers with brand new properties. As you’ll see, online auctions are increasingly seen as an alternative marketing strategy, not a last resort option.

Sellers elect to auction properties and forgo a traditional real estate sale primarily because of one over-arching reason: auctions accelerate sales. Below are several characteristics of the online auction that ensure velocity of sale.

• The Bid Deadline
  • The Bid Deadline creates a sense of urgency for prospective buyers, getting all those fence-sitters in the game.
  • The Bid Deadline also lets everyone know that there is a certain date of sale.
• Focus Market Attention
  • LFC’s online auction campaigns feature aggressive marketing campaigns that grab buyer attention
• Global Reach
  • Online auctions have a global reach.
  • Bidders can perform all their due diligence and submit bids from anywhere in the world. Bidders no longer have to show up at a ballroom for a live, outcry auction.

Do you agree with these benefits of an online auction? Do you think using a conventional real estate sale is better? We would love to hear from you so please send us your comments.

The next post in our Using Online Auction Series will compare outcry auctions with online auctions.

Real estate auctions are the all the buzz these days, and there is a lot of auction vocabulary that can easily confuse people who are unfamiliar with the process. Given that the LFC Group of Companies has been conducting auctions for over 30 years, we decided to do a series of posts that can help clear up any confusion or misconceptions about auctions.

This is the first post in our series, Using Online Auctions. Today, we’re going to quicklysummarizeseveral different types of auctions.

1. Absolute Auction/No Reserve

• With an Absolute Auction, there is no reserve price, and the seller is obligated to accept the highest bid, no matter what the amount.

2. Minimum Bid

• The Minimum Bid is the least amount that you may initially bidfor a property.

3. Reserve Auction*

• A reserve auction means that the seller has the right toaccept, reject or counter the highest bid if it does not meet their reserve price. Note that the minimum bid is not always equal to the reserve price.

*On our online real estate auction website, FRE.com, the most common auctions are reserve auctions with minimum bids.

If anything is still unclear about the minimum bids, my post about lower minimum bids in our Ft. Lauderdale Auction might help further explain this integral aspect of online auctions.

Coming Soon

• Be on the lookout for our next post in this series: Debunking the myth that online auctions are only for distressed homes.