Four condos left after GrandView auction
Bidders snapped up 21 condos at a second auction at GrandView at Annapolis Towne Centre, leaving four in the 150-unit project unsold, the auctioneer reports.
Mark Troen, chief operating officer of auctioneer Sheldon Good & Co., told me in June he was confident that everything at the high-end project would sell. Yesterday he said the builder could have auctioned the few remaining units at the Sunday event but decided a traditional transaction for the rest would bring an equal or higher price.
"We always promised that at least 10 would sell," Troen said. "We actually got to 21, so I think that's a pretty good result."
The winning bids ranged from $337,600 to $810,000 on units that Sheldon Good said were originally priced at $514,000 to $937,900.
About 200 people attended the Sunday auction, including 55 who registered to bid, Troen said.
It was a take-two auction for the complex, built by Sturbridge Homes. Bidders picked up 33 units in November, three more than Sheldon Good announced would be put up for sale.
Buyers also bought units between the two auctions. All those efforts combined explains how the GrandView went from largely empty to almost done with sales in just over half a year (though obviously some under-contract condos haven't closed yet). The earlier auction was held a year and a half after the first units changed hands.
"We sold a tremendous amount of inventory in the last seven months," Troen said.
Seen any interesting auctions lately?
Sign up for the At Home newsletter 
Comments
I have a hard time believing or understanding the business that they claim is going on over there. I know two people closely and several more through friends who got condos for below 200k in that building, and they said the agents were practically begging them to take them. If it's almost full as they claim then I don't know why they'd be so desperate. I know when I looked at one they were trying a VERY hard sell. I practically had to tear myself out of the agents grip to get to my car. Something isn't what it seems.
Posted by: Lucy-Loo | July 27, 2011 12:29 PM
Once contracts go to settlement, they're public record (though it can take a few months for them to actually show up in the records). So certainly by the end of the year, it'll be clear whether everything (or nearly everything) has actually changed hands.
Posted by: Jamie Smith Hopkins | July 27, 2011 12:56 PM
the same thing happened here in our market 1.5 year ago. It was in a building called the Terrazzo and Accelerated Marketing Partners did the auction. I was in the Terrazzo today and it seems empty, but when I look at the deeds, the building is 94% conveyed. This leads me to believe that many auction buyers are second residence buyers.
Posted by: Grant Nashville | July 27, 2011 3:31 PM
Sorry, but those prices they're reporting don't smell right. I'd expect the people registering and bidding at these auctions to be more savvy and aggressive than the average person and those bids are too high--too close to the bubble valuations for those properties. You don't bid on and win a condo like those as a 2nd house/investment and then pay 80-90% of face value. Something is fishy.
Posted by: chappy10 | July 27, 2011 11:23 PM
Hi Jamie,
In response to your inquiry about interesting auctions, my colleague is conducting a cemetery foreclosure auction in MD. Perhaps a sign of the times? Very often, a real estate auction is elected to solve a real estate problem.
Posted by: RachelR | August 4, 2011 8:19 AM
RachelR, that's fascinating -- I wonder how often cemeteries are auctioned off.
Posted by: Jamie Smith Hopkins | August 4, 2011 9:31 AM