NEW YORK CITY-Three years after listings began at m127, the high-end condominium project at 127 Madison Ave. has achieved a sellout using a method reportedly not seen in Manhattan for at least two decades: an auction by the property’s developer. Sunday’s auction was held at the Roosevelt Hotel, drew more than 400 attendees and sold the remaining six of nine units in less than half an hour, a spokeswoman for Paramount Realty USA, which conducted the auction on behalf of developer Cardinal Investments, tells GlobeSt.com.
Five two-bedroom apartments sold for prices ranging from $1.23 million to $1.42 million. The sixth unit, a three-bedroom duplex penthouse, sold for slightly more than $2 million after originally being priced as high as $3.4 million.
“Sunday’s results are proof that auctions represent a smart way to market and sell real estate,” says Misha Haghani, one of the two principals at Paramount Realty, in a release. “The trend will continue to grow here in Manhattan and elsewhere.”
After the first three units sold in early 2008, sales stalled as the residential market turned downward. With foreclosure on a $9-million loan “certainly a possibility in the long term,” Cardinal cofounder Kyle Ransford told the New York Times in May, the El Segundo-CA-based developer hired locally-based Paramount to organize an auction.
“We feel that now is an opportune time to re-launch the building and introduce a totally new and exciting marketing strategy,” Ransford said in a release last month. Prior to Sunday’s auction, Paramount announced that the debt to the lender, the Bank of Smithtown, had been “satisfied,” the spokeswoman says.
Paramount held four consecutive weekends of open houses in the weeks before the auction, giving potential buyers an opportunity to tour the residences. At the auction itself, potential buyers were required to show a certified, bank or cashier’s check for specified amounts in order to be allowed to bid. Buyers were then required to sign the contract and tender the specified deposit immediately upon placing the winning bid.
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Paul Bubny
Paul Bubny is managing editor of Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com. He has been reporting on business since 1988 and on commercial real estate since 2007. He is based at ALM Real Estate Media Group's offices in New York City.
