Going, Gone

By BUILDER Magazine Staff No online bidders won homes in the first-ever live house auction simulcast on the Web. But Oakland, Calif.-based iBidCo (www.ibidco.com) and Internet giant eBay, who teamed up to run the auction, both declared it a success. On Dec.17, 89 people gathered at the Burbank, Calif., Hilton to bid on 20 new homes built by Premier Homes. iBidCo conducted the auction, while eBay’s Live Auction technology let people bid remotely via the Internet. According to Doug Galen, general manager of eBay Real Estate, the online bidders added “an air of excitement and anxiety to the event. No one knew if and when a bid was going to come from the Internet.” Galen says that the ballroom participants seemed particularly aggressive about making bids, and that the homes sold, on average, for 102 percent of the asking price. eBay and iBidCo plan to do more such events in the future.