Going, Going, Gone!
By Elsa Brenner
Bid on the City, a new online bidding service for luxury real estate, has chosen Westchester as one of three upscale areas in the New York Metro region for technologically advanced approach to selling in the current housing market.
“It’s the new eBay for real estate,” says Vlad Sapozhnikov, Bid on the City’s co-founder and general manager. “A standard brokerage approach no longer works in this type of economy. There is a need for much more dynamic tools.”
Live bidding takes place in Bid on the City's 4,000-square-foot Fifth Avenue headquarters, but can also be done online with video and audio streamed in real time.
Properties—not foreclosures, mind you—that are up for bid range from $684,000 to $5 million, with opening bids starting at $1. These are houses that simply have not sold for one reason or another, and the owners, while not in desperate straits, are nevertheless anxious to strike a deal.
Under the Bid on the City model, sellers sign a 60-day exclusive listing agreement, but unlike traditional auctions, these will have no hidden reserve price. The houses will be sold to whomever bids the most above the seller’s stated minimum.
Want a sample of what’s up for bid? Check this out.
Among the offerings, you’ll find a 5-bedroom, 5-bath house with an in-ground pool on 1.25 acres in Scarsdale, with a starting bid at $1.99 million. (It came on the market at $2.8 million.) Taxes: $54,662.
If you miss that one, though, not to worry. There’s more to come, like a 4-bedroom, 5- bath Colonial at 182 Finch Road in North Salem, which came on the market at $3,200,000, but has a starting bid of only $1,995,000.
