Condos to be auctioned -Tampa, Fl

Condos to be auctioned in effort to move units: "Condos to be auctioned in effort to move units
STAFF REPORT

In another sign of a slow housing market, 100 condominium conversion units at the Hamptons at Tampa Palms will be sold in December in an auction -- 40 of them in an 'absolute auction.'

That means some of the units on Amberly Drive in the New Tampa area will go to the highest bidders with no minimum bid or reserve.

Condos selling 'absolute' will include 15 three-bedroom units, 20 two-bedroom units and five one-bedroom units.

Residential and real estate auctions have become the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. auction business.

In a real estate market that has been turned upside down, auction specialists are finding interest growing exponentially from would-be sellers desperate to move their product.

Bay Communities, the development firm converting the apartments, decided on an auction strategy to speed up sales, said Craig King, president of J.P. King Auction Co., the Alabama outfit managing the event.

'With the marketplace slowing down a bit, Bay Communities decided it was a good time to get more aggressive and sell a number of units in one day,' King said.

The developer, Bay Communities, started marketing in mid-2005, 'but as everybody knows, the market has slowed down quite a bit nationwide since then,' said Bay's Bill Harkins.

'In that environment, we felt an auction would help reduce the inventory.' "