Prairie Pointe's auction, sale by sale

Prairie Pointe, 1600 S Prairie Ave, ChicagoAs promised, I’ve put together a spreadsheet outlining every sale from Sunday’s auction of (most of) Prairie Pointe‘s last 13 condos. Scroll down to the bottom of the post to see the numbers for each sale.

Keep in mind that the final prices listed below don’t include the $30,000 parking spaces that each buyer purchased or the 3-percent premium tacked onto each sale. Figure those additional costs in, and Gammonley Group took in more than $2.77 million this weekend, at prices ranging from the $220s for a 997 square-foot one-bedroom to the $330s for a 1,443 square-foot one-bedroom.

A few more observations on yesterdays proceedings before moving on:

  • Inland Real Estate was banking on a blood-pumping bidding war at best or an enticing deal at the very least to start off the afternoon, but the complete lack of interest in Prairie Pointe’s penthouse set a depressing tone for the rest of the auction. The unit was an outlier, priced well above anything else that was on the block, so it shouldn’t have been a sign of things to come, but it definitely seemed to suck all of the energy out of the room. In the words of a fellow observer: “Well, that was awkward.”
  • Inland used a “bidder’s choice” process, in which buyers bid for the right to choose from a pool of units. Although each pool consisted of similar units, those units didn’t necessarily have the same minimum bid. Either some buyers were confused by this, or they smelled blood in the water and hoped to play hardball with the developers in a rather public setting.

    The first pool contained three 07 units carrying minimum bids of $267,000 and two 03 units carrying minimum bids of $295,000. The first two winning bidders in this pool won at amounts below the $295,000 minimum but chose the 03 units anyway. After some discussion and repeated explanations of the “bidder’s choice” process, one buyer agreed to boost his bid to the minimum in order to secure his desired home, but the other held out, offering just $285,000 for the one he wanted. The developers have the right to decline the offer, but I’m guessing they’ll take the money.
  • Despite the auctioneer’s insistence that prices would climb as units dropped off the board, only once did a home go for more than an earlier sale.
  • Not counting the many Inland and Wells Fargo employees milling about, there were probably 50 people in attendance, including several spouses, parents, children, Realtors, and observers. The number of actual bidding parties couldn’t have been higher than the low teens.

View, print, or download this spreadsheet with Google Docs.

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