Kenmark Construction held the first mass real-estate auction in Billings in recent memory. The auction was on Tuesday, September 9. I attended.



This auction was well publicized, and approximately 350 people showed up! The large room in the new College of Technology building was filled up, standing room only.

So how was it? You can read the Gazette write up, but that doesn't tell you much in terms of what actually went on and what it means for the market. That's what I'm here for.

First off, all 13 properties actually sold! That's pretty amazing; I've watched other auctions around the country, and usually few if any properties sell. Kenmark's success was in part due to fairly low reserves on the properties, and in part due to reasonably strong bidding in a Billings market that has not entirely gone bust yet.



Second of all, Kenmark let these properties go for pretty low prices. Bids came in at around 70% of the original asking price. I checked asking prices on comparable non-Kenmark properties. Kenmark's original asking prices were high, but the final bids were still a good 20% off of current asking prices for similar properties.

Also, according to a cursory glance at county records, some properties sold at near or below Kenmark's original construction loans. And that doesn't include land prices.

I've put together a spreadsheet showing the hard data for all of these properties. Please note that this is a rough take, and all data are preliminary.

The $/sf fields indicate the dollar amount per square foot, either for the original asking price or the sale price. I also included Comps $/sf list, which means the current asking price in dollars per square foot for similar properties for comparison.



I also took some video. But, of course, you're going to have to wait a few more weeks to see that in my full next installment of Housing Boom in Billings!