Going and gone: Developers of Tribute Lofts decide to put units up for auction because the condo market was sluggish.
By Kevin Duffy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/23/08
Caleb Atkins gave himself a heckuva birthday present Sunday: a two-bedroom, two-bath condominium on the top floor of the Tribute Lofts building east of downtown Atlanta.
Tribute sold 26 units in an unusual one-hour auction Sunday at the Omni Hotel at CNN Center. The developers, Greg and Brian Wohl, decided to go the auction route because the condo market is so sluggish.
In a year’s time, Tribute, which recently won a new-construction award from Atlanta’s Urban Design Commission, has sold fewer than half of its 147 units. Many of the condos put up for auction had been under contract, but the deals fell through.
“I’m about to go and celebrate pretty heavily,” said Atkins, a Georgia Tech graduate who works in Suwanee and turns 25 on Friday. “I prefer to live where I play.”
Even before learning of the auction, Atkins was planning to buy a Tribute condo and say goodbye to his house-sharing in Virginia-Highland.
“But two days before I was to make that offer, the auction was announced,” he said. “We freaked out. The two-bedroom unit that I couldn’t afford, I could afford now.”
Atkins is a homeowner for the first time. He paid $263,000 —- the highest price at the auction —- for the 1,306-square-foot unit. Atkins pointed out his winning bid was “30.77 percent” less than the original asking price of $379,900.
Initially, the Wohls and auctioneer Accelerated Marketing Partners intended to auction 40 units. But 10 units were nixed beforehand because registrants showed little or no interest in them.
Four more units were not offered for sale when the sellers ended the auction early; they feared prices might go too low as the crowd thinned. “We had gone as low as we could tolerate,” said Jon Gollinger, Accelerated Marketing Partners’ co-founder and East Coast chief executive officer.
Nevertheless, Greg Wohl said he was pleased because selling that many condos will stabilize the development and help his company pay off its construction loan.
The project still has about 40 market-rate units left to sell, which will be reduced in price as a result of the auction, Wohl said. Tribute also has 10 unsold affordable-housing units.
Representatives of two of Atlanta’s biggest condominium sellers, the Marketing Directors and Coldwell Banker the Condo Store, were on hand to observe the results.
The cheapest sale was $132,000 for a 795-square-foot one-bedroom unit that originally was priced at $183,900 —- a discount of 28.2 percent. Minimum bid prices for the one-bedroom, one-bedroom-with-den and two-bedroom units ranged from $110,000 to $198,000.
Paul Nichols, a 30-year-old software engineer and Georgia Tech graduate, earned a round of applause as the first winning bidder. He paid $144,000 for his one-bedroom unit.
Nichols said he plans to move there from Buckhead and enjoy the seventh-floor view while waiting for his new home to appreciate.
“And if it doesn’t,” he said, “America is in trouble.”
