Sold. On a crisp fall day at the Colonnade Hotel in Boston’s Back Bay , the second much anticipated downtown Boston condo auction of 2009 took place in front of a group of poised bidders and their real estate professionals. The market waited patiently for less than an hour to see what the results would show for the first large-scale Back Bay condo auction of the decade.
10 units at the 50-unit Bryant Back Bay high-end condo development on the border of the Back Bay and the South End were released by the developer for sale at auction, and were sold within 45 minutes of the auction commencing. Bidders, each with a $20,000 certified check in hand, watched the auction process unfold in front of them. The Bryant Back Bay is the fourth downtown Boston property to go to auction since 2006, following the Folio, Broadluxe, and the 1850 Lofts, and it is the first Back Bay property to partially go to auction this decade.
The development “partially” went to auction because there were approximately 45 units remaining for sale in the building before the auction began, the developer released 10 for sale at the auction event, and intends for the auction to set a market driven price for the remainder of units which will be sold at auction prices, but through a normal sales process.
The price point at which the developer was listing units for sale before the auction began was approximately $980 per square foot. The auction was coordinated with minimum bids that averaged $597 per square foot. The auction event itself resulted in the market setting an average price point of $675 per square foot, approximately 30% off original asking prices, and some $300,000 above minimum bid prices.
Download the full Bryant Back Bay Condo Auction Results (PDF 52 KB)
Accelerated Marketing Partners, the firm the Bryant’s developer hired to bring the property to auction, leveraged a similar tactic at the recent Nouvelle at Natick condo auction outside of Boston earlier this month, where they sold 43 units at auction prices, and used the newly established price point to drive further sales of remaining units at the development (see Nouvelle at Natick Condo Auction Results). The Bryant Back Bay will leverage the auction results as a bell weather for eventually moving remaining units in the building to a sold status.
Keith Munsell 
