When to Auction a Property | 1901 SE Ranch Road | Ranch Colony

The Challenge: an unfurnished, ultra-modern, single-story house with an 80-foot great room as the only non-bedroom area in the entire house. The master bedroom was detached in a seperate pod outside the main house. The house is 7600 square-feet on a 20-acre parcel zoned equestration.

The owners had just built the house and the owner was in poor health. It had been on the market for 1 year with less than 3 showings. The husband died prior to the start of our listing.

The Question: How to get the highest and best price, create traffic and competition?

The Solution: We proposed to furnish the house, price it at $3.9 million (it cost approx. $2.5m), give it high-profile open houses and advertising, and if it didn’t sell by the end of the season, we would partner with an auction company to sell. We were given a bare-bones decorating budget of $45,000, so we furnished it ourselves (having a home furnishings textile background helped greatly), vetted 10 auction houses, got the 4 children involved to make an informed collective decision, and auctioned on 5/24, less than 150 days from when our listing began.

On auction night we had 3 dressage horses and riders and 10 qualified bidders who each wire transferred $50,000 in order to bid. The auction lasted 45 minutes and was a hoot!

While the seller would have been happy to clear $1.4m to $1.5m, the final price including the buyer’s 10% premium was $2,277,000.