An apartment at the Saffron condo building

While often, and perhaps unfairly, seen as a sign of desperation by condo developers unable to move units, the developers at one Jersey City condominium say that a property auction — to open sales, rather than close — has worked for them.

The Saffron condo building, a $25 million project at 217 Newark Avenue, developed by Fields Development Group and TreeTop Development, celebrated its “pre-opening” of sales this past Sunday with an auction.

The auction included nine units — five two-bedrooms and four one-bedrooms out of 76 homes. These sold out so swiftly that James Caulfield, a partner with Fields, said the developers allowed so-called “step-up buyers” (buyers willing to buy units not included in the auction for the highest bid of the last round of bidding) to purchase six other units after the bidding closed. The top bids for the one- and two- bedrooms were $322,000 and $440,000, respectively, around $25,000 and $59,000 lower than the average asking prices comparable units will have when they hit the market next month. Even though the units sold for less than market rate, Caulfield said the benefits for selling a chunk of units quickly outweigh the losses. [more]