Go to the mobile version of this Web site.

Login | Contact Us | Site Map | Paid archives | Electronic edition | Subscription Questions | Extras

High-end homes up for auction

Seven Stapleton houses being offered for sale online through March 5

By John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 20, 2009 at 12:05 a.m.

Text size  
This three-story home at Stapleton is among four in the Denver Brownstones development that are up for auction online. Three homes in the Urban Estates also are for sale online. A Touchstone executive said the area has seen a slowdown.

Photo by Linda Mcconnell / Special To The Rocky

This three-story home at Stapleton is among four in the Denver Brownstones development that are up for auction online. Three homes in the Urban Estates also are for sale online. A Touchstone executive said the area has seen a slowdown.

Related Links

More Real Estate

More stories »

Touchstone Homes is auctioning seven houses in Stapleton that originally were priced at more than $1 million each.

None of the houses has ever been occupied. Four are in the Denver Brownstones development and three are in Urban Estates Homes.

The auction apparently is the first in Stapleton, which for years has been one of the hottest housing markets in metro Denver, said Tom Gleason, spokesman for Forest City, developer of the site of the former airport.

"We support any efforts any of our home builders need to do in this market," Gleason said.

The online auction began quietly Dec. 19, but Newport Beach, Calif.-based LFC Groups of Cos. will intensify marketing as the auction moves closer to its March 5 deadline.

The minimum bid is $585,000 for the Stapleton homes, which initially were priced from $1.075 million to $1.5 million.

Touchstone also is including a $975,000 custom home in Golden that carries a minimum bid of $530,000.

"Stapleton has been very good to us," said Dan Mues, president of Touchstone, which had a luxury home in the 2003 Parade of Homes at Stapleton. He said he remains bullish on Stapleton long-term.

He said the company started to see a "bit of a slowdown," about two years ago, when the Brownstones, with more than 3,300 square feet of space, were being completed. Touchstone sold three of the seven Brownstones, one for more than $1 million.

"The problem with the Brownstones is that they are a new product, and they were not right for this time in the economic cycle," Mues said. "It had not taken off and did not get any traction."

Michael Kearns, a real estate agent who lives in Stapleton and specializes in selling homes there, said he doesn't think the auction sends a message about Stapleton, although he admitted homes aren't selling like they were in the past.

"Those homes were aimed at a very specific market, and is not a reflection, overall, on Stapleton," said Kearns of RE/MAX Alliance.

Overall, he said, prices are either flat or slightly up in Stapleton, compared with the double-digit returns home sellers used to take for granted.

"If you think about it logically, in the past there was no competition because your only choice was from new-home builders," Kearns said. "Now, there are over 3,000 homes built in Stapleton, so there are a lot of resales competing with the new homes."

Mues said the online auction is "just a marketing tool, a way to reduce our excess inventory. I know that auctions have this bad connotation, a negative connotation, but these are not bank-owned and are not distressed properties."

Information can be found at the company's Web site, Freedom Realty Exchange, FRE.com/284R3. Bidders must put down $5,000 in an escrow account.

ONLINE BIDDING

If you have ever bid for something on eBay, you'll find this auction of expensive homes isn't that much different. First, go to FRE.com/284R3, fill out the registration, and you'll be walked through the rest of the process, including how to make a refundable deposit.

Here is a look at the homes in the auction, which ends March 5.

Denver Brownstones

Address;Square footage; Value; Minimum Bid

8864 Martin Luther King Blvd.; 3,355; $1.125 million; $625,000

8814 Martin Luther King Blvd.; 3,344; $1.075 million; $585,000

8834 Martin Luther King Blvd.; 3,474; $1.099 million; $599,000

88544 Martin Luther King Blvd.; 3,344; $1.07 million; $585,000

Urban Estates Homes at Stapleton

9897 E. 31st Ave.; 4,020; $1.5 million; $829,000

2322 Spruce Way; 4,075; $1.26 million; $690,000

8004 E. 25th Drive; 4,018; $1.3 million; $699,000

Golden home

4826 Isabell Court; 4,147; $975,000; $530,000

Comments

  • January 20, 2009

    7:58 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    WarrenJimmyBuffett writes:

    These homes are worth a discounted amount from their cost of construction with the land cost basis at zero, since land has no value right now.

  • January 20, 2009

    4:04 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    jacka writes:

    The value will be the highest bid and its conditions.

    These million dollar "values" presented above are a joke.

  • January 20, 2009

    4:05 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    jacka writes:

    and WJB is right, the land is of near zero value.

  • January 21, 2009

    10:08 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    rn2007 writes:

    Could /WJB or Jacka explain their "the land has no value now" theory?

    I would agree that those particular homes are overvalued in today's markets but find it hard to believe that the land itself in one of the most popular in-town neighborhoods is really worthless.