Real Estate Auction ~ Buyers / Sellers hesitant at sale of MB-area properties

Only a few of the 50 properties offered had final bids above what the auctioneer sought as opening bids… at a real estate auction Saturday morning at the Myrtle Beach Marriott Resort at Grande Dunes, . A number were withdrawn because they had no bids at all and others likely won’t make it to the closing table.

• The auctioneer refused to even consider a $1 million bid on a 7.5-acre Myrtle Beach property with a 3,700-square-foot house. The property was estimated to be worth $10 million and the auctioneer was looking for a $4.5 million opening bid.

• Except for two condominiums near Coastal Carolina University, sellers didn’t have to accept the final bids. The two condominiums, two bedroom/two bathroom units in a building on S.C. 544, were sold as absolute, meaning sellers agreed to accept the final bids before the bidding began. The sellers got $70,000 and $71,000 for the units, $5,000 to $10,000 above what was bid for two other condominiums in the same building.

Bidding opened to a crowd of a couple hundred, at least, but most ended up as lookers, not buyers.

• The auctioneer said he expected more activity at Saturday’s auction from a variety of buyers, but what he saw was a roomful of hesitant buyers and sellers.

• Properties that got no bids included several multimillion dollar homes in Grande Dunes and two vacant, oceanfront lots in Atlantic Beach.

Source: Steve Jones, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, SC