If you can drop $8.5 million without blinking, then you’re Bob and Patty Rolland’s kind of people. The couple began test-marketing the sale of their four-villa resort at Po‘ipu a few years ago, but found little luck attracting the kind
If you can drop $8.5 million without blinking, then you’re Bob and Patty Rolland’s kind of people.
The couple began test-marketing the sale of their four-villa resort at Po‘ipu a few years ago, but found little luck attracting the kind of buyer who could unblinkingly give their asking price.
“We were looking for the kind of buyer who was rich enough to not really want the property as a business,” Rolland explained.
In other words, he was looking for an ultra-rich buyer.
The problem was that most buyers and real estate agents on island were looking at surrounding properties as a standard by which to value his.
What the Rollands needed were broad-ranging — and well-heeled — connections.
In a last-ditch effort to find “the richest people in the universe,” as he calls them, Rolland plunked down $100,000 of his own cash for an Alabama-based real estate auction service, the National Auction Group.
Their job: to stir up a hornet’s nest of attention by any means.
For the last few weeks, the National Auction Group has advertised on internet web sites, in national magazines, exclusive high-end real estate publications like the Robb Report, even magnetized signs stuck to car doors.
Is Rolland getting the kind of attention he wanted?
“It’s been better than I thought it would be,” he said. “Let’s just say I’ve had a calls from a lot of people, including from someone with the last name ‘Schick.'”
On June 10, all that work should pay off when the ocean-front resort property at Po‘ipu goes on the auction block, complete with catered food and live music.
If the auction goes well and they get what they want — or more — the Rolland’s will save themselves a hefty real estate commission. And unlike a “distress” real estate auction, the Rollands won’t have to take the highest bid.
In other words, they’ve got little to lose.
Indeed, “the auction company gives the $100,000 back when we sell,” Rolland said.
But what if they don’t sell?
“This is it,” Rolland said. “We’re getting out. We’re gonna take what we get.”
The figure Rolland is pitching is $8.5 million. He may or may not get it, he admits, but the buyers he’s attracted so far have his confidence buoyed.
Since custom-building the resort in 1990, the Rollands have always known their property was unique.
It’s that uniqueness that made selling — indeed, just valuing — their property difficult.
That’s where auction services can help.
According to the National Auction Forum, a million-strong professional trade organization of auctioneers, wealthy people with “trophy” property choose auctions for their speed and capacity to generate a wave of interest from highly qualified buyers.
For the Rolland’s, the method has created a minor typhoon of interest locally and abroad — to the chagrin, perhaps, of the real estate companies who rely on commissions and traditional face-to-face sales.
“Realtors here wait for people to get off the plane,” Rolland said. “They’re all looking at this a bit nervously because, now, they’ll have to get out there and work a little harder.”
If the method catches on here on Kaua‘i — and there’s talk that more auctions are coming — people with “unique” properties, a.k.a. estates with expensive homes on highly prized and rapidly disappearing beachfront, will opt for them.
National Auction Group sold a lavish Maui estate in 1999 and a Kailua-Kona ranch in 2000.
It’s not all bad news for realtors. The National Auction Group will offer any real estate agent who brokers the sale up to two percent of the final bid price.
That’s a lot less than agents usually get, but Rolland is unapologetic.
“I’m not worried about any realtors out there on Kaua‘i making it,” he said. “They’ve been doing real well.”
Whoever buys the villas will do well, too.
Fully furnished ocean-front homes in Po‘ipu rent for anywhere from $5,000 to $11,000 per week, says Margy Parker, executive director of the Poipu Beach Resort Association.
For all the attention those high-tech ad techniques have generated, it’s really quite simple, says Rolland: “It only takes one buyer.”
Those bidding on the villas will be required to pay 10 percent on auction day and must have $100,000 in certified funds. Closing will be in 30 days.
