In the down residential market, New York City developers are catching auction fever. The Solaria condominium in the Bronx’s Riverdale neighborhood is the latest new building in the region to use an auction to spur interest — the Saffron condo in Jersey City recently used an auction to kick off sales and Greenpoint’s the Locale sold off units at auction earlier this month for 44 percent below asking — hosting an auction yesterday afternoon. The tactic seemed to pan out well for both buyers and Arc Development, which has been struggling to move units. By the auction’s end, 54 condos sold, with the average winning bids hitting 35 to 45 percent below what the asking prices were on the units. [Crain's] and

From the November issue: After the binge comes the purge. The condo auction market is heating up in Jersey City, as developers look to move the glut of apartment inventory amassed during the heady building boom in recent years. Distressed sales of properties are also expected to accelerate in the area, with lenders increasingly looking to wipe their hands clean of troubled mortgage loans. The urge to purge is the fallout from a frenzied period of condo construction in Jersey City — a stone’s throw from Wall Street — where about 5,000 new units came on the market at premium prices, sources estimate. Condo prices in Jersey City, which saw a steep run-up during the boom, have dropped between 15 and 25 percent since the height of the market in 2006, experts estimate. Meanwhile, the number of condos closing today in Jersey City is down about 45 percent compared to the peak of early 2007, according to the Marketing Directors, which sells new developments in markets across the country, including Jersey City.

TreeTop Development’s 16 new Greenpoint luxury condominiums at the Locale are going up for auction, a move that the company hopes will speed sales and reduce the costs involved with a conventional marketing process. Units range from 600 to 1,000 square feet, and bids will start at $150,000, a steep discount from the original asking prices of between $445,000 to $599,000. The building’s first showing is this Sunday. The Nov. 11 auction, which will take place at the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge, will be the first of its kind for Brooklyn, but not for TreeTop, which is also working with real estate auction firm Sheldon Good & Company to auction off the first nine units at the Saffron in Jersey City on Nov. 8. [Crain’s]  [more]