From left: Bid on the City co-founder Vlad Sapozhnikov, Paramount Realty USA co-founder Misha Haghani and 552 West 43rd Street, where Paramount is conducting an auction

With the steady stream of distressed residential properties in New York City, foreclosure auctions have dominated recession-era headlines. But auctions at non-distressed properties have also gained prominence throughout the recession, especially among developers looking to unload remaining units in a new project.

But with many industry experts ready to tie auctioneers’ success to antsy sellers and developers, some wonder whether they can sustain momentum in a slowly stabilizing market, as auctioneers try to evade the stigma that pigeon-holes their business as a “last-ditch” approach to sales.

Misha Haghani, co-founder and a principal at real estate auction company Paramount Realty USA, said he’s optimistic that this market is a turning point for the industry, with more sellers viewing auctions as a viable sales tactic.
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While many parts of the nation are seeing a decrease in the number of mortgage defaults and other home loan-related distress, southeastern Queens is continuing to see its rate of foreclosures rise, according to Crain’s. The region, which has long ranked as one of the worst in the nation in foreclosures, is continuing to see the number of homeowners in distress climb. Foreclosure rates in some of southeastern Queens’ most badly hit areas climbed as much as 80 percent month-over-month in August, according to RealtyTrac data. [more]

Auctioneer Real Estate Disposition has scored a Hamptons beach house foreclosure auction. The 3,000-square-foot Montauk home will hit the block next week, according to the Wall Street Journal, in a region that has remained relatively immune from the foreclosure crisis. The three-bedroom, four-bathroom home was sold for $1.28 million in 2006 and has a starting bid of $379,000. This is the auction company’s first Hamptons-area foreclosure listing, according to a spokesperson, out of the more than 27,500 properties auctioned so far this year across the country. [WSJ]

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New York City saw 1,541 foreclosure filings in May, marking an 18.25 percent plummet from May 2009, according to national foreclosure resea [more]

While Alex Abrams, executive vice president of auctioneer Real Estate Disposition Corporation, spearheaded last winter’s auction of the Solaria condominium in the Bronx, he told the New York Times that many New York City developers are still reluctant about the idea of a property auction. Even though the Solaria auction resulted in “high-bid offers” on the remaining 54 units in the 64-unit building, according to Abrams, many developers try other tactics, like slashing prices, before attempting an auction. [more]

A 16-unit luxury co-op building at 34 Leonard Street in Tribeca is hitting the auction block May 5, according to Crain’s, a year after developer R Squared defaulted on its $37.5 million mortgage and saw lender iStar Financial foreclose on the property. Although the property’s conversion to co-op was considered a success, the developers’ timing was off, placing the units on the market in fall 2007, just a short while before the recession hit. The R Squared development team has yet to comment on the auction proceedings.

From left: 88 Peconic Hill Drive and 7 Hannahs Court

Two new summer rental properties have been added to Bid on the City’s inaugural Hampton’s property auction, set for March 26. The Southampton properties, a 2,585-square-foot house with a pool and fireplace at 88 Peconic Hill Drive, and a 5,800-square-foot house with a pool and hot tub at 7 Hannahs Court, have starting bids of $60,000 and $135,000 per summer, respectively. The auction, which was originally set for March 20, will include nine other properties (click here to see slide show of the properties). The rental auction will be structured differently from the site’s Manhattan events, opting for a so-called “Dutch auction” rather than the more traditional approach. “Unlike traditional bidding in which the price goes up and bidders have an opportunity to increase their bids, the Dutch auction has incremental decreases [from a higher starting price] until the first bid comes in,” according to Bid on the City. A second Hamptons auction event, featuring 10 properties, is slated for April 9. TRD [more]

After announcing last month its Hamptons-based summer rental auction event, Bid on the City unveiled the nine homes that will go on the block March 20 (see slide show of the properties above). Each listing is a summer rental, from Memorial Day through Labor Day. The auction includes four Southampton rentals, two Hampton Bays homes, and one home in Sag Harbor, East Hampton and Water Mill, respectively. The rental auction will be structured differently from the site’s Manhattan events, opting for a so-called “Dutch auction” rather than the more traditional approach. “Unlike traditional bidding in which the price goes up and bidders have an opportunity to increase their bids, the Dutch auction has incremental decreases [from a higher starting price] until the first bid comes in,” according to Bid on the City. The priciest listing, a three-bedroom, two-bathroom waterfront home at 10 Murphy Place in Hampton Bays has a starting bid of $159,000 for the summer. The least pricey starting bid is for the other Hampton Bays listing, a five-bedroom, four-bathroom home at 70 Squiretown Road. See slide show of nine Hamptons listings above. TRD
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2280 FDB, located at 2280 Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem

A new 12-story Harlem development, 2280 FDB, has been approved for Federal Housing Administration’s financing, according to a release sent by developer RGS Holdings and Halstead Property Development Marketing, the development’s sales team. Meanwhile, Daniel Hollander, the former senior managing director of the Clarett Group, has launched a new, nationwide investment and development consulting firm headquartered in New York City and Sheldon Good & Company is set to auction off a one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo at 1600 Broadway on March 19, one of seven residences set to be auctioned as part of the High Country Club’s Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation. Click here for more. TRD [more]

Yesterday’s $1 minimum Bid on the City auction event may not have gone as well as anticipated, according to Malcolm Carter who attended the event. Of the 10 properties on the auction block, fewer than half had closing bids that reached 50 percent of the properties’ last asking price, according to Curbed. One property at 147 West 142nd Street, which last had an asking price of $445,000, was auctioned for $50,000, while a unit at 175 East 102nd Street last listed for $225,000 auctioned for $110,000. And Carter said that Bid on the City representatives would often reset the auction clock when activity deteriorated, apparently in an effort to ratchet up more bids. Sellers will have 24 hours to accept or reject the final bids.