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When the residential housing market took its big spill, real estate auctions became a quick means for lenders to dispose of growing distressed property inventories and a popular avenue for bargain-hunting buyers. The[IMAGE]commercial real estate sector, too, now finds itself on a banana-peel floor, and here also the auction forum is proving to be a powerful business practice for tumultuous times.
""Tranzon Integrated Property Group"":http://www.tranzon.com/search.aspx?listing=TranzonCompany&Id=22&text=Tranzon%20Integrated%20Property%20Group, a regional partner of the national auction and marketing group ""Tranzon LLC"":http://www.tranzon.com, announced Monday the closing of the Central Plaza Shopping Center, a 50,000 sq. ft. center on over 7 acres of land in North Branford, Connecticut.
The company explained that this distressed property had sat on the market for more than 24 months â€" until, during a short five-week marketing period Tranzon surfaced 230 interested bidders. From this group, 53 parties toured the property, and 18 qualified bidders attended the auction, bidding the property up to $2,860,000.
""Although this property had great potential, it languished on the market for over 2 years teetering on foreclosure
[COLUMN_BREAK]without sufficient interest to close a deal,"" said Joshua Olshin, president of Tranzon, ""but in a very short time our auction marketing process was able to create a competitive bidding environment that was acceptable to the owner and to its bank.""
Andrew Buzzi, Jr., an attorney specializing in distressed properties and workouts from the Danbury, Connecticut law firm of ""Buzzi & Terbrusch"":http://www.ajblaw.com, represented the sellers in the workout of this asset with their lender, ""Citizens Bank"":http://www.citizensbank.com.
Buzzi noted that ""within weeks of bringing Tranzon into this situation, we were in a contract that allowed us to successfully structure a work-out solution that allowed my clients and Citizens Bank an acceptable exit in a difficult situation.""
Oren Klein, auctioneer and partner at Tranzon, added, ""The auction brought all the tire kickers to one place at one time, and turned the 'interested parties' into real bidders, ready to close on the asset all cash on an as-is, where-is basis.""
Tom Greene, an agent at ""Ryer Associates"":http://www.ryer.com of Danbury, had previously been marketing the center and brought Tranzon into the process when the end game with the lenders became imminent.
""We were extremely happy with the results and look forward to offering our clients the Tranzon auction method of marketing for their real estate assets during these turbulent times,"" Greene said.
Property auctions have been an industry fixture for some time now, but are growing in appeal and reputation with the challenges the downturn brings. Since the ""National Auctioneers Association"":http://www.auctioneers.org began tracking the industry in 2003, gross receipts from real estate auctions have increased each year, with REO properties contributing significantly to the growth in 2008.
