Yesterday, National Real Estate Auction Corp. held their auction at the Airport Marriott Hotel in Phoenix and I had to attend the event since I blogged about this last month. There were over 100 properties of all kinds consigned and approximately 80 to 100 people turned up a the ball-room of the Phoenix Airport Marriott. Additionally, the auction was also simulcast online via proxibid.com, therefore it was impossible to determine how many total registered bidders attended.
Luckily I brought my tiny Minolta Dimage XT and I was able to record some video. Be forewarned, the quality is horrible (320×240-pixel MPEG video with 29 frames per second) but it was better than having no camera at all.
I think that this little video could be a good source of information for home sellers, investors and REALTORS® who are unfamiliar with the auction process or have never attended such an event and consider consigning a piece of property at a real estate auction.
There is to say that it will be interesting to find out how many properties actually went under contract and how many of these contracts will actually close escrow.
Escrow Officers from Magnus Title and Loan Officers from Great South West Mortgage were present at the auction event to assist any potential buyers and sellers.
Perhaps I will post more about this as soon as I get more information, in the meantime check out the video.
Real Estate Video by - Real Estate Blogger
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Christoph Schweiger is a 35-year-old real estate agent living with his wife and son in sunny Scottsdale, Arizona ... 
Greg Perry on Jun 19, 2007
Very interesting post, Christoph.
Trevor on Jun 27, 2007
I like the addition of the video in the post
AJparker on Aug 4, 2007
You made a key point:
“There is to say that it will be interesting to find out how many properties actually went under contract and how many of these contracts will actually close escrow.”
Any follow-up in that regard? How would you determine this?
I see another auction is scheduled for 8/25. Would be nice to know how the last one fared. As you mentioned, the only way to determine that would be sales and closings.
jeff on Aug 8, 2007
Christoph, thanks for your thoughts on this auction company. You gave me insight to several of my concerns. Seems like a good way for them to make several hundred grand every few months with half (or so) of their customers getting value….
Steve on Nov 5, 2007
I was looking into auctioning my commercial office building in Prescott Lakes with these people.
They wanted to charge me $3995. This is quite a bit cheaper than some other auction companies out there. They also offered to re-auction it again in March if it didn’t go in December.
I missed the cut off date for December so I’m planning to use RealtyBid.com starting on November 25th. With RealtyBid.com you must do most of the advertising yourself.
Another good thing about National is that the buyer pays the commission of 3.5% to your realtor.
If anyone is interested my property can be seen at http://geocities.com/prescottoffice
Mike on Jan 23, 2008
I was also at the auction because I had a home it it. There were basically no bidders and although they claim to have written 10 contracts, on a list of 180 homes, that’s less than 6%. On almost every home they did not even receive an opening bid except for what the auctioneers put in themselves to try to stimulate the bidding. By the time they reached the 70th home they began to just ask for an opening bid and if none, they passed. Considering they charged approximately $540,000 to carry off this auction, I believe most of us really feel like it was a scam.
Dawn McVicker on Jan 23, 2008
We were also at the auction and had a house listed. It is my personal opinion that there were no buyers at the auction. The houses on the market had to be sold for the reserve price or the buyer who bid on the property was not obligated to purchase the property. How many of those homes do you think set their reserve price at the opening bid? Ours wasn’t, and I bet you neither were the few houses who had bids on them. Anyone notice who was bidding on these homes? I heard the auction help say ” yep” a few times on those first few homes but did not see any actual bidders. Were those bidders planted? And did they know the reserve price on the homes so they knew they were not obligated to actually buy the home. I think they got tired of the game early though, because the bidding completely stopped after the first few pages!
Also,if this auction house is so successful, why won’t they publish the closing numbers on these homes and what they sold for? Why the secrecy? I was told that the last auction sold all but 30 of the homes and they were on this last auction. Did they actually sell that many
or did people, like myself, pull their properties so they didn’t get duped out of a 1% commission when their home finally sold,to a seller who was not affiliated with the auction? Let me tell you though, the auction house called on Monday just to remind us that they were entitled to that 1% if the house sold in 15 days! Ya we were scammed!
PJB on Feb 12, 2008
I’m wondering why these sellers feel they got scammed. No one made them do it and I bet if their home sold this would be the greatest thing on earth. If a seller has had his property on the market for a while with no luck selling it and he had a buyer that cost him an extra 1% to sell he’d be crazy not to sell it. I notice the sellers never state what the home or property was priced at and what was the condition of the property? They don’t tell us that. They seem to forget how much time and money goes into putting on something of this magitude. I don’t work for the company, but I have been to several auctions. It’s pretty simple, if you like the price, you buy it!
Larry Summerson on Apr 9, 2008
I was wondering if Mike on January 23, 2008 or Dawn McVicker on January 23, 2008 had any follow up or do you know if they filed any complaints with the state or BBB or other against National Real Estate Auction? Could I send this email to them?
Thanks,
Larry Summerson
Steve Johnson on Jul 12, 2008
It seems that most of the overpriced homes did not seem to sell at the auction. I attended their last auction and there were buyers buying. I agree not every homes got bids, but I did see alot of homes get bids. Several bids fell short of the reserve, but were the reserves realistic. Only the sellers and the auction company knows that. Well I will go to their next auction and see what happens.
Tim on Jul 20, 2008
I went to an auction today 7/20/2008. I would highly suggest NO AGENT or HOMEOWNER pay the 2995.00 fee to place your home in this auction. During the entire auction of about 150 homes, there were about 10 bids placed. There was about 100 people who showed up. Out of the 100, I had counted maybe 15 bidder cards in the crowd. All their tv advertising is aimed at getting homes in the auction, not to bring buyers. Their website makes it impossible to find homes, and they don’t set specific days and times to have open homes like the major bank owned auctions.
It was a joke. The only bidding going on is the phantom bidding by the auctioneer. They do it to keep the integrity of the auction. It was funny as each home passed, people got up an left (proof to show only the home owners and agents for the property were in the crowd)
Jamie on Jul 21, 2008
I was very pleased with this auction. My home sold for about 90 percent of the asking price, so I was happy about that. Alot of the homes did not recieve a bid, I guess due to over pricing there property. My house was on the market for 120 days, enough was enough. Do I think all homes will sell in there auction (NO) but it’s worth a try.
Jamie Cook
Jason on Jul 25, 2008
Jamie,
Can you provide the MLS Listing for your home. I would like to see what is sold for?
I had a client who put their home in the auction at a starting bid at 50% of Todays Value. So Overpriced.. NO
There were simply no bidders there as with every other auction
Jason on Jul 25, 2008
http://central-northern-western-arizona.bbb.org/WWWRoot/Report.aspx?site=30&bbb=1126&firm=97013507
BBB Report
National Real Estate Auction Corporation on Aug 28, 2008
This post is posted by NREAC
Please understand that this auction service is intended for marketing purposes and is a creative way to create a sense of urgrency in a market that lately has no urgency at all. It is correct that not all homes sell at auction and NREAC never claims this to be the case. This is a cooperative marketing concept that has been sucessful for many home sellers. Let’s face it, if every home sold at auction, why would there even be real estate agents anymore?
There are 2 dissatisfied individuals that have posted completely false statements regarding our company on this site. It is our belief that the 2 posts placed on January 23rd were posted by the same person beacause they were posted within minutes of each other it seems.
This auction is not an absolute auction it is a reserve auction, the seller can accept or reject any bids so the ultimate outcome depends solely on the seller. We have no control of what homes sell and which ones do not. All we can do is bring you as many buyers as we possibly can to your home and to the auction.
Please review our status with the BBB which was posted by another user. We have had 4 compliants (2 are posted here) out of almost 1000 homes placed in our auction. Not too bad for a company that has been referred to by 2 bad sports on this site as a “scam”. All complaints were promplty resolved and we are continuing on to our 5th multi-property auction in Phoenix on September 28th, 2008.
If you are one of the many successful sellers who have used our services and were satisfied when your home sold, please write about it here if you are reading this.
Thank You for reading this and if you would like further information about our company, our past auctions, or possibly an explanation why the homes of the 2 angy people posting false statements did not sell please contact us at (480) 348-2243.
National Real Estate Auction Corporation on Aug 28, 2008
Update on Dawn McVicker (and Mike) comment.
As of 6/12/2008 the property has been removed from the market and has still not sold after more than 400 days on the market! The list price has been reduced from the $799,900 list price that we had at the January auction to $575,000 from 2/6/2008 to 6/12/2008 and still no buyers. Dawn McVicker fails to mention that on the day she signed up for the auction (10 days prior to the auction) she raised her asking price by $100,000!!!!! In addition immediately follwing the auction (same day of auction) she lowered her list price in MLS by $200,000!!!
These type of games played by sellers are the types of practices that NREAC does not want to have in our auctions. If you need a further explanation of why these ridicoulus actions by sellers lead to failure odf sale at auction you may reach us at (480) 348-2243 and we will explain this particular situation further. The information provided here was obtained by the listing history in MLS.