Picture this: 6 bedrooms, 6 baths and 2 powder rooms. Pan to the chef’s kitchen overlooking a landscaped garden. End scene on an outdoor terrace and private wet bar. It’s a picturesque home and an idyllic listing – and it ignites the imagination of high-end buyers.
Yet, buying or selling in a luxury home market can often be uncharted waters. It creates a need for real estate professionals to employ creative selling and marketing strategies to serve the best interests of their clients.
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Janice Corley, Broker/Owner of RE/MAX Premier in Chicago, believed her seller’s Gold Coast mansion was a piece of art and should be treated as such. Taking a unique approach, Corley partnered with Chicago auctioneer Rick Levin to auction the home in December 2019 with a minimum bid of $3.35 million. Although luxury properties sometimes involve longer sales cycles than typical homes, as the buyer base is a limited segment of the population, auction marketing efforts led to a swift deal before the auction ever took place. The seller accepted a pre-auction offer $425,000 over the minimum bid and the client was pleased with the outcome.
“We decided to take this approach to get the attention of qualified buyers – taking the same approach every year and expecting different results is not how I run my business,” Corley said. Noting that the strategy was always to get the house sold prior to the auction, Corley said that the property auction was a unique marketing strategy, not a situation of financial distress.
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The “reserve price” auction, an auction in which the owner has the option to not sell unless the stated minimum is met, has many pros. For starters, there is a sense of finality and a shortened period of time the property needs to be available for showings. Another general appeal of selling at auction is the benefit of marketing the home to pre-qualified buyers as auctioneers may verify the wherewithal of all participants. Auction homes can also be sold “without reserve” when the owner has waived the minimum and agrees to take the best price offered.
“When you reduce the price of the home, buyers think there is something wrong with the property. That was not the case in this situation,” Corley stated. “So taking a different approach and appealing to our target audience was paramount to our success. My goal is to place a listing in the strongest possible position for a sale.”
1316 N. Dearborn Parkway may be “going, going, gone” but high-end home auctions are a trend that’s expected to stick around.
Written by Samantha Rotbart
