Auctions have become a convenient, efficient method of moving inventory in a hurry, and that includes all types of real estate. The auction, which historically included the image of Snidely Whiplash in a black top hat selling off the farm to the highest bidder, is no longer synonymous with desperation and bankruptcy. The Internet also has brought property bidding to the family den, with online giants like Priceline and Ebay jumping into the real estate cyber space. Large companies, including Weyerhaeuser, US Bank and the University of Washington, use auctions often to dispose of excess property.

Realty Marketing/Northwest (http://www.rmnw-auctions.com) is acting as the auction-marketing consultant for a spring event that includes 70 properties--valued at more than $30 million--in Washington and Oregon. These properties are being sold at an oral auction on May 12th and via sealed bid auctions on May 18th and 22nd.

Nine of these properties, including seven timber tracts in Grays Harbor County, are being sold with no minimum bid as part of the bankruptcy liquidation of assets owned by Seattle-based Quality Veneer and Lumber Co. There are also 28 additional properties located in Idaho and California in the auction lineup.

Snohomish County is selling five properties valued at over $1.2 million, including an apartment site in Everett, a 39-acre residential development tract with one million board feet of timber near Granite Falls, and a recreational tract along the South Fork of the Stillaguamish River.

"Bank-owned properties include the 9,500-acre T-16 Ranch, one of Central Washington's largest irrigated farms, which is being offered at $13,500,000, a $2 million price reduction from the last asking price," says Tim Reinertsen, Realty Marketing/Northwest's senior vice president and Washington state broker.

Eastern Washington properties included in the auction are a former restaurant with a development site near the Tri-Cities along Interstate 82 and two partially leased cold storage and warehousing facilities in Yakima and Wapato. There are several timber properties featured in the auction, some with development potential in Thurston County and with ocean views next to Pacific Beach in Grays Harbor.

Fourteen residential, commercial and development properties are being sold by Clark County, which feature an historic craftsman style home, an apartment and subdivision land near Interstate-5 and Vancouver, WA.

"We developed the concept of offering widely scattered properties of many kinds from different sellers on a regular, semi-annual basis in 1986," Reinertsen says. "It is highly effective with both buyers and sellers, and is now the oldest continuous real estate auction marketing program in the Western United States.