Real estate auctions accounted for $74.8 billion in sales during 2010, according to a new estimate by the Gwent Group, based in Bloomington, Ind.
The figure includes live sales, government sales, estate and private ‘boardroom’ sales, sealed bid auctions and Internet auctions. The total also includes the toxic, nonperforming paper sales by financial institutions of their nonperforming, pre-foreclosure sale of mortgages.
Steve Martin, chairman of the Gwent Group, expects to see more real estate auctions taking place throughout the year.
‘We're expecting to see a dramatic increase in the use of auctions for commercial real estate and residential marketing in 2011 and 2012,’ says Martin. ‘The weakness in commercial real estate has been seen in the shortage of bidders at many sales. Farmland auctions were strong, because farmland has been the strongest of all real estate sectors in the past year or two.’
SOURCE: The Gwent Group
