Marcus & Millichap is getting into the business of auctions.
The Calabasas-based brokerage has hired Adam Sklaver and Phil Kates from CBRE to lead commercial real estate auction sales, a move announced last week. Both Sklaver and Kates are based in Miami, according to their LinkedIn profiles.
Sklaver and Kates were previously with CBRE’s capital markets group, where they led auctions for properties under $20 million, according to CBRE’s website. Before CBRE, the duo both worked at Ten-X, a CoStar-owned commercial real estate exchange.
Kates started his real estate career at New Urban Properties and eventually worked for Auction.com’s commercial division. Before Ten-X, Sklaver worked at Reis, a commercial real estate database firm that was acquired by Moody’s in 2018.
“Online auction capabilities have emerged as an additional marketing channel for the right assets and situations,” Marcus & Millichap COO J.D. Parker said in a statement.
Kates and Sklaver will use Marcus & Millichap’s own property marketing system to provide auction services to clients throughout North America, according to the announcement.
With auctions, Sklaver and Kates, like other brokers working with auctioned properties, must secure “best possible prices for sellers” within an “accelerated” time frame.
Distressed properties, such as a property up for foreclosure, make up a large portion of all auctioned properties, though any property can be sold through an auction.
Many commercial brokerages have an auction services, or “accelerated marketing sales” team. CBRE launched its own auction service in 2010, citing popularity for the sale method, according to a release at the time.
Properties in the $3 million to $5 million range tend to be the “sweet spot” for auctions, Victor Gutierrez, Ten-X’s head of platform operations, told LoopNet in 2020.