Brazos Place Condominiums
A new condo conversion in downtown Austin has announced that they will auction off their remaining units in May. Brazos Place is a 78 unit, 13 story conversion project located at 8th and Brazos. The building was previously the Commodore Perry hotel, apparently one of the first hotels in downtown Austin to offer complete air conditioning and radios and tvs in every room. The current owners renovated the building and turned it into a mixed-use condo project. 59 of the units were sold to buyers and now the developers have decided to auction the rest of them off.
We should be asking, Why? We have seen a few other “auctions” in Austin for condos, never this many though and none have yet been downtown. But, for the most part these auctions serve as somebody’s idea of a great marketing plan. They advertise one unit at less than half of the orignal price and then don’t disclose their reserve prices. Of the three that I have seen, no sales have come out of the auction. This one appears to be a little different however.
The developers have retained the services of a national real estate auction company. The auction is only open to pre-approved buyers who show up with a $2,500 cashier’s check to serve as an earnest money deposit in case of a successful bid. This leads me to believe that the developer is probably in actual trouble financially and will probably accept most bids.
The prices for the auction are starting at about 40-50% of the original auction prices. They are anticipating around 500 people will show up pre-approved for a loan to bid on these condos. If you would like more information about Brazos Place, the auction, or the general status of the downtown condo market, please shoot me an email to john@urbanspacerealtors.com
