http://thegardenisland.com/business/local/article_0882af7a-213e-11e0-b69e-001cc4c002e0.html
Auction brings $5.6 million for 6 South Shore homes
Vanessa Van Voorhis – The Garden Island The Garden Island | Posted: Saturday, January 15, 2011 11:30 pm | (2) Comments
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PO‘IPU — Kennedy Wilson announced Monday that the real estate investment firm’s auction of the six luxury homes within the Wainani at Kiahuna development in Po‘ipu had total sales of $5.6 million.
The auction, held at the Grand Hyatt in Po‘ipu on Dec. 28, drew 75 people and 25 online bidders. Many out-of-state bidders visited the luxury development in the weeks leading up to the auction, the company said in a press release.
Final sales prices were as high as $1 million for a two-story, three-bedroom house. Average price per square foot was $434, the firm said.
The live webcast auction platform, produced seven out of every 10 bids and resulted in four sales.
Bidding started at $450,000 to $595,000. Kennedy Wilson auctions typically have an unpublished reserve price, which allows the firm to refuse the highest bidder. The starting bid price is not the reserve price.
Reserve-price auctions are an effective low-to-no-risk marketing vehicle. It allows a seller to aggressively market the sale of a property as an event, tap into the bargain-hunting psychology of the marketplace, pool a group of pre-qualified buyers into one place on one day and have them compete against one another, while reserving the right to decline the highest bid if it does not meet expectations.
In October, Kennedy Wilson purchased the Wainani subdivision from the original developer for the distressed price of $12 million. In addition to the homes, the sale included 63 undeveloped lots averaging 8,000 square feet each.
The developer had completed construction of the 2,000- to 2,300-square-foot model homes at the end of 2008 and had put them on the market for $1 million to $1.5 million each in early 2009.
Kennedy Wilson Auction Group President Rhett Winchell said, “Within the Wainani at Po‘ipu development, the seller anticipates that the lots will either be sold individually or in bulk to a home builder.”