Category: Blog

If you were to drive to the Alliance Ohio area you’d see real estate auctioned all the time. It is a very common way of quickly liquidating all kinds of things.

Farms, farm machinery, tractors, cars. You name it. There are places where auctioning is the standard way of quickly selling large and small investments. 

In Akron, we clearly see it happen less often. But it does happen.

There is a real estate auction happening here in Akron in a couple days.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Auction Starts: 5:30 PM – Real Estate: 5:30 PM
Gieck Family Trust
4-Bedroom Home With Garage
Sand Run Metro Park Area
Absolute auction, all sells to the highest bidder on location:
1761 Karg Dr., Akron, OH 44313

You can click here to learn more.

It’s a really interesting process. You might go just to check it out. Anyone is welcome at an auction. You can always come to just check it out. You don’t have to register. You can just watch.

So, why would you consider putting your house or real estate up for auction?

A very common reason is probably what happened at this property. You can see it says: Gieck Family Trust.

It’s likely that someone passed away and now the family needs to sell this house.

In this case, the legal structure is a little different than an estate auction. This property was already setup in a trust before the people who owned it died. 

Often you will see the words “Estate Auction.” If you come across those words then the auctioneer must, by law, list the county it is located in and the Probate Number. It would look like this auction:

This doesn’t really matter to people who are buying. But if you are selling you probably want to know this is how it all works. 

Even if you have a will you will still need a probate case number if you are having an estate auction. If there is a trust then there are no requirements for what needs to be listed in the advertisement.

So, we see a lot of families using auctions to quickly and efficiently sell their parents’ estate.

A lot of times the family is no longer located near the property. There are several siblings. One person has been put in charge of the estate. Getting to this point has often been difficult. There is no more efficient way of selling real estate and personal property than an auction.

I have gone into a house, organized everything and sold every last item in a house. And never once did I even talk to a family member. The entire process was handled between our auction firm and the attorneys. It’s all done in a single afternoon. 

I’ve worked with a family that moved to Key West and left a key in a lock box. We sold everything in the house and just sent them a check.

You can’t deny the ease of an auction. But the big question is: are you getting the most amount of money for every single item? 

The short answer is: You win some. You lose some.

Very often furniture sells for less than people expect it to. Dolls lost almost all their value after the Great Recession. Your fine china rarely is of much interest to anyone.

But cast iron pans are a big hit. People love guns, jugs, anything that’s unique. 

If there is something you would feel deeply sad about “giving away” then you should take it out of an auction. You might be surprised to find that others don’t have the same appreciation of the item as you do.

I will say, I often get people that come to me after trying to sell things in tag sales, eBay and Craig’s List. I often hear that these places aren’t what they used to be.

From my perspective, I believe people are pricing items too high. They are are living in a pre-2008 world. It’s simply not like it used to be. 

A standard sized ranch house of a person who recently passed away will typically have $1000-$1700 worth of stuff in it. This wouldn’t include cars or riding mowers or decent jewelry. That’s just what I’ve seen.

But what about real estate?

If you look at the Gieck Family Trust real estate auction you will notice that it says: “Absolute auction, all sells to the highest bidder.”

The key word here is: Absolute. This means that once the bidding starts then the house will sell to the highest bidder. The owner cannot withdraw the house once bidding has started. 

This is a Kiko auction. And that’s how they normally run their auctions.

So, if the house only gets to $30,000 then that’s what it goes for. More likely than not, Kiko would probably step in and buy the house if it is too low. It’s possible they discussed that with the owner. It’s perfectly legal for the auctioneer to bid on the house. But it is NOT legal for the owners or any representatives of the owners to bid on an absolute auction.

The other kind of auction is called a Reserve Auction. This is where auction law is a little tricky. If you see an ad that says: “Real Estate Auction” then by law it is a reserve auction.

That means that the property has a minimum price it must sell for. The owner can shut down the auction at any time. The owner can also bid on the property.

So, you could say: “I don’t want to sell the house for any less than $60,000.” If the bidding doesn’t get to that price then it won’t sell. 

I’ve seen auctioneers get close to the point at which the owner is willing to sell. They halt the bidding and then go talk to the owners. This sometimes happens by phone. 

Let’s say you were having a personal property auction, there is little reason why you wouldn’t also try to auction the real estate. If it doesn’t sell for the price you want then you just don’t accept any offers and then list the property like normal after the auction.

Why not try auctioning your home? As long as you have a reserve auction there is nothing to lose. But if you win then you just sold your real estate in one day. It’s a pretty powerful option.

I’m a licensed real estate agent. So, theoretically, I could do an auction for you where we sell all the personal property. We also try to auction the real estate at the same time. If it doesn’t bring what you want then we could list it after the auction. I can auction your property or list it. Whichever you prefer.

There is something else you should know about an auction. It creates a strong desire for your property. It’s like opening day of a movie. You build up all the anticipation with signs, pictures, videos and advertisements. You build the anticipation. And then people get one shot at the property. There is only one lucky winner. 

When you list a property you are basically saying, “Here’s my house. Stop by sometime and check it out if you want.” 

The longer it stays on the market the more you have to lower your price. That’s the only compelling tool you have. Just make your price lower and lower and lower.

With an auction all these people that are interested in your property get one shot at it. If they want it they better show up and start bidding.

We also require 10% down the day of the auction. So, your buyer isn’t going to walk away. They are going to buy your house or they’re going to lose a lot of money. That money would be yours.

And finally, why would you choose Rubber City Auctions?

It’s simple: You’re reading this article, aren’t you? 

My background is that of a digital marketer. I’ve run a digital marketing agency, SageRock, since 1999. The only thing I’m really good at is marketing. I guarantee people will know about your auction and they are going to want to come. 

Also, I guarantee we can beat Kiko’s price. We will either beat their price or we’ll give you a $20 Amazon Gift Card. 

Feel free to call me direct at: 330-416-7519 or email me at: sage@rubbercityauctions.com

I’m a big believer in testing.

I’m very open to new ideas and strategies.

So that’s why I decided to run a tag sale followed by an auction this past weekend.

Let me set the stage for you:

This was a sale for a long-time collector who needed to move into a location with significantly less storage space. This was due to illness.

There were a lot of items. It completely filled, floor to ceiling, two single car garages.

The sale needed to happen in a week and a half. It also was going to be run in the middle of January in Northeast Ohio. There was no economical way to move it all to our auction house. And there was no place to hold it inside at their house.

The owner was interested in a tag sale. They are big in our area.

So, we decided to have a tag sale all day Saturday and Sunday morning. And then we’d follow up with an auction on Sunday afternoon.

The long and short of it is: We sold everything. That was the overarching goal. I don’t believe that would have been possible with one auction. It was too cold to stand around for hours. And people always get tired about 3 hours into an auction.

So I the tag sale / auction blend was good in this case.

But let me talk about it from two different perspectives: the seller and the auctioneer:

As the seller I feel like I made them a little more money going this route. I was able to price things a bit higher than I thought I’d get them at auction. And people bought them. Many of these people were regulars at my auctions. So they know what stuff goes for. But they bought them any way at a higher price. Maybe this was because it was cold and they didn’t want to stand around at an auction.

I feel like this was a good solution for a lot of small personal items in garages in the winter.

The question is: if it was a warm summer weekend, could I have gotten more money by having two auctions? Maybe a Saturday auction and a Sunday auction.

My instinct is yes. My regulars would have come to both auctions. And they would have ended up bidding against each other both days. Ultimately, I think I would have gotten more money total.

But… there’s a big but.

From the viewpoint of an auctioneer things were much more interesting.

I got a lot of people showing up that go to tag sales. My newspaper ad pulled a lot of new people. My auction people don’t use the paper. They just use Auctionzip.

Craig’s List also brought in new people.

This was a great opportunity to meet new people and invite them to our auction house.

They were good buyers. I think they liked the sale because we priced everything to sell. There is a widely known fact in our area that tag sale companies over price their items. They either take the left overs or leave them with the customer. We needed this stuff gone.

But my regular auction goers were interesting. Many of them came to the tag sale but didn’t come back to the auction. A few did, however. And they were my saving grace to move items.

I also know that they didn’t buy things at the tag sale that I know perfectly well they would have bought at the auction. If they had come back to the auction I feel like I could have gotten a higher price for the items at the end because there would have been some bidding wars.

But I had two new bidders that cleaned me out. One guy had never been to an auction before. And another lady hadn’t gone in many years. I think they loved the deals. I was so excited for them. An auction regular knows some items can go for super cheap. But these new people were pretty shocked at all they could get.

I don’t think they would have come if it had just been an auction. I think a lot of people are afraid of auctions. And truthfully, they can be a little intimidating to the newly initiated.

I’d say we got about 50 – 75 people to come to our tag sale. And we had 10 motivated buyers at the auction.

Having a sale in the winter is great, in my opinion. There isn’t nearly the amount of competition. And people definitely want to buy.

I just wish I had been able to have it in doors. But the items, and the sheer amount of items, didn’t make moving them to our auction house an economically viable solution.

Given the same situation, I think I’d seriously consider doing it this way again.

People were able to come and go quickly during the tag sale so they didn’t have to freeze waiting for their item to come up.

And then we were able to do the auction of the remaining items in about 2 hours.

The biggest issue as the auctioneer was the cost of doing the tag sale / auction.

I just charged a flat 25% for the entire operation.

Paying someone for 8 hours of a tag sale on Saturday, 4 hours on Sunday and then paying 3 people for 3 hours on the auction was a much bigger expense.

As I think about it, maybe an online auction would have been a viable solution in this case. I could have run the entire thing by myself if I wanted to.

If I did it again, I think I’d charge a labor cost of $100. That would have really taken the edge off the costs.

I might come up with some packages that people can buy. I’d keep the 25% commission and then offer a one day tag sale for $100. A 2 day tag sale for $200. A 2 day tag sale and $100 of advertising for $300. We’ll see what comes my way next.

I do think that I’d just skip the Sunday morning tag sale that we had before the auction. We got very few people. It didn’t really make it worth it. I might also consider ending the tag sale at 3:00 instead of 5:00.

But ultimately, I loved meeting the new people. I feel happy that we got what we did for the merchandise. I’d say it was a successful experiment that I’d try again.

We’ve got a really exciting weekend in store for you. We’re going to mix it up with a tag sale and then open it up as an auction.

This is just the personal property and NOT the house.

Here are the details:

WHERE:

4180 S Main Street
Akron, OH
(You get to the house off of Snyderman)

WHEN:

Tag Sale Saturday, January 28 from 9am – 5pm.

Our Tag Sale will continue Sunday, January 29 from 9am – 1pm.

And then we will have an Auction starting at 1pm Sunday, January 29

This is a tag sale / auction from a long-time collector who is forced to sell due to illness.

There is something for everyone here. You aren’t going to want to miss it.