Rick Levin Real Estate Auction

I was at Rick Levin's real estate auction on Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at the Chicago Crown Plaza Hotel to witness the selling of two penthouse condominiums that were going to be auctioned off that night. 

I arrived at the hotel at approximately six o'clock to check in and see the excitement of the event. Rick Levin was off to the side with his wife talking to customers and people were in the process of registering.  The real estate auction started at 6:30PM with the announcer talking about all the rules and conditions of the event.  That lasted about fifteen boring minutes and then the show began.

Rick Levin's auctions always seem to have a lot of excitement to them basically because of the great bid callers he hires and their assistants.  Every auction I've gone to of his has had the same team and all of the players seem to really know what they're doing.  They started with a practice round selling Wrigley Field in a mock auction to get the crowd buzzing and jumping, which worked well.  And then it was time for the auction.

As I scanned the crowd, it appeared as if there were about fifty people prepared to bid Tuesday evening.  The Rick Levin real estate auction was not only auctioning off penthouse condominiums in the Metropolis Property in Downtown Chicago, but parking spaces as well. The parking spaces were auctioned off first.  The first parking space was sold at $24,000.  The remaining spots went between seven thousand and ten thousand dollars.

Now it was time for the exciting part of the real estate auction; the auctioning off of the penthouses.  We were told that they originally were priced at $1.5 million, but for the day of the event, there would be a possibility of taking them for a minimum bid price of $360,000 for penthouse A and $180,000 for penthouse B.  As the bidding began, it was clear that only two couples were in the running.  After is was all said and done, a lovely couple ended up getting both A&B for a total of $500,000.

The crowd dispersed soon after the penthouse sales and the Rick Levin real estate auction came to a close.  I'm sure the couple who won the penthouses celebrated that evening.  What an excellent buy on a great night in Chicago. As far as the sellers, they probably walked away not happy, but then again, they sold a condo product that was sitting on the market for a long time.