13 minute read
AT A GLANCE
Auction is not for distressed sellers. Auction is not the same as a foreclosure sale. Auction is a strategic marketing event that Kim and Martin Hawley have run 11 times since October 2025, with 9 of the 11 closing at the auction table (82% success rate) and every single successful auction going from live-bidding-open to under contract in exactly 9 days. Today's post is the honest playbook: the track record with actual addresses (which are public MLS record), the property profile that fits (Cape Coral waterfront with a pool, not in an HOA, easy access), the property profile that does not fit (gated communities, cookie-cutter homes with plenty of direct comps), the 8-day marketing event with its four choreographed open houses, the 3% buyer's premium mechanic that actually helps the seller net more money, the seller protections that keep the seller in control (you can always accept, reject, or counter any bid), and the one auction that "failed" at the live event and still closed 89 days later because the auction generated the market attention that a traditional listing had not.
The Track Record: 11 Auctions Since October 2025
Kim and Martin have run 11 non-distressed seller auctions between October 30, 2025 and May 20, 2026. The record, in the order they closed:
| # | Address (public MLS) | Auction End | Hammer Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2306 SW 51st St, Cape Coral 33914 | Nov 10, 2025 | $840,000 |
| 2 | 2111 Barkeley Ln #19, Fort Myers 33907 | Nov 20, 2025 | $150,000 |
| 3 | 1618 SW 14th St, Cape Coral 33991 | Dec 11, 2025 | $319,300 |
| 4 | 3346 SE 10th Pl, Cape Coral 33904 | Feb 11, 2026 (sold post-auction) | $635,000 |
| 5 | 1130 SE 36th St, Cape Coral 33904 | Mar 5, 2026 | $530,450 |
| 6 | 3614 SE 17th Ave, Cape Coral 33904 | Mar 11, 2026 | $741,600 |
| 7 | 1341 Whiskey Creek Dr, Fort Myers 33919 | Apr 15, 2026 | $367,710 |
| 8 | 1631 North Dr, Fort Myers 33907 | May 7, 2026 | $265,000 |
| 9 | 5117 Rutland Ct, Cape Coral 33904 | May 20, 2026 | $414,030 |
Plus two auctions that were withdrawn without a sale (7 Birch Blvd, Fort Myers, in November 2025; 3418 SW 5th Pl, Cape Coral, in March 2026).
The math on the sold column: 9 of 11 auctions closed. 82% success rate. Add the 3% buyer's premium to each hammer price to get the buyer's total-cost-of-purchase (which is also what determines the seller's net proceeds calculation).
The most consistent metric in our auction inventory is the 9-day auction-live-to-under-contract time. Every one of the successful nine went from auction-open to under-contract in the same nine days. That is the marketing-event pattern we have refined across the year.
What This Is NOT: Distinguishing From Foreclosure Auctions
The word "auction" carries baggage in real estate. Most sellers hear it and think foreclosure. Most buyers hear it and think lender-owned distress sale. Neither is what we are talking about here.
A non-distressed seller auction is a strategic marketing event run for a non-distressed, currently-listed seller who wants to sell their home to the highest bidder in a compressed timeline with concentrated attention. The seller is not in default. The lender is not involved. The bank is not seizing anything. Nothing about this process resembles the county courthouse foreclosure auction that made it into your imagination.
The Bid This Property FAQ we walk every seller through puts it directly: "Auctions are not only used for distressed sales. Many valuable assets, including estates, cars, and paintings, are successfully sold through auctions." SWFL non-distressed seller auction is that same mechanism applied to real estate that fits the profile.
The Property Profile: Where Auction Actually Works
Auction is not right for every property. Being honest about this is what makes the Hawley Team recommend it rarely rather than universally.
Auction fits best on:
Cape Coral waterfront homes with pools, not in HOAs. This is where we have had the most success. Waterfront Cape Coral without HOA restrictions gives us both the appeal (buyers show up in force) and the access (no gate hindering the four open houses and the pre-auction inspections).
Properties that are too unique to price cleanly. A gulf-access canal home with a specific dock length and a specific boat lift is functionally its own market. There is no direct comp two doors down. The traditional pricing process guesses. The auction lets multiple buyers compete for the property and discover the real market price in real time.
Properties that have already been on the market for a while and have not moved. Days on market builds a negative narrative around a listing. The auction is a strategic reset. The property comes off the market, gets prepared for the auction event, and relaunches with a low starting bid designed to attract a crowd. The narrative flips.
Some condos (specifically ones with strong location appeal or unique features).
Auction does NOT work on:
Gated communities. Access is mission critical to our auction workflow. The four open houses need to run without the buyer pool being filtered by a security gate call sheet. We have tried; we do not do it anymore.
Cookie-cutter properties with many direct comparable sales. If your home is one of 40 nearly-identical builds in a subdivision, the traditional listing process works fine. Auction is unnecessary machinery.
Sellers who need to close on a specific date. Auctions have a defined marketing window and closing timeline that may not align with a seller who needs to close on the third Thursday of a specific month for a specific reason.
If your property does not fit the "waterfront pool home, no HOA, unique" profile, Kim and Martin will tell you directly and recommend the traditional listing path. The right recommendation for the wrong property is still the wrong recommendation.
The 8-Day Marketing Event: How the Timeline Actually Runs
The Hawley Team auction workflow is a defined 8-day marketing event with four choreographed open houses. Here is exactly what it looks like.
Wednesday: Launch. The property goes live on Bid This Property (bidthisproperty.com), our online auction platform. The starting bid is intentionally low (often around $350,000 for a home that will ultimately sell in the $700,000s) because a low starting bid attracts a crowd. Buyers register on the platform with a pre-approval letter and proof of funds. Then the bidding begins.
Thursday evening: Broker and neighborhood wine-and-cheese open house, 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. This is not the general public. This is agents and neighbors. Agents come to preview the property for their buyer pool. Neighbors come because they are curious and because their kids' friends might want to buy in the neighborhood. Both audiences generate word-of-mouth marketing that a traditional listing simply cannot manufacture.
Saturday: Public open house, 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Weekend crowd. The full buyer pool who has seen the auction listing online.
Sunday: Public open house, 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Same audience, second weekend day.
Tuesday evening: Public open house, 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. The evening slot catches buyers who could not do the weekend and gives the auction one last surge of foot traffic before the Thursday close.
Thursday 3:00 p.m.: Auction closes. If a bid comes in during the last five minutes, the auction auto-extends (this prevents eBay-style sniping). Once bidding is truly complete, the seller sees the top bid and has the right to accept, reject, or counter.
9 days after launch: Under contract. Every successful Hawley Team auction has gone from live-bid-open to under contract in the same 9 days. Not sometimes. Every one.
The 3% Buyer's Premium: The Mechanic That Actually Helps the Seller
This is the mechanic that non-auction agents often get wrong. The 3% buyer's premium is not a fee that comes out of the seller's pocket. It is added on top of the winning bid and paid by the buyer.
Here is exactly how the 3% splits:
2.5% goes toward buyer's concessions. This includes the buyer's agent compensation, and it is not limited to that (a portion can go toward buyer's closing costs, prepaid escrow, or other buyer-side items).
0.5% goes to the Bid This Property platform service fee.
What this means for the seller's total commission cost. In a traditional Florida real estate transaction, a seller might be paying 5-6% total in commission. In a non-distressed seller auction, the seller typically pays 3.5% to 4% and the buyer separately pays 3% premium. The math for the seller often works out equal-to-or-better than the traditional structure, even though the total dollars circulating in the transaction are similar. The seller keeps more of the sale price because the buyer's premium covers costs that would otherwise be borne by the seller in a traditional listing.
Seller Protections: You Are Never Locked Into Anything
The single most common auction concern we hear from sellers is: "What if the bidding stops at a price I do not want to accept?" The answer is simple.
You accept, reject, or counter any bid. You are never locked in. The auction does not have a hard "highest bidder wins no matter the price" outcome. If the top bid at Thursday 3:00 p.m. does not clear your acceptable-price threshold, you can:
Counter the top bidder at your acceptable price. Many auction sellers have done exactly this and closed at the counter price.
Reject the top bid entirely. You keep the property, the auction closes, and you decide whether to relaunch or move to a traditional listing.
Accept. If the top bid meets or exceeds your acceptable price, you accept and go under contract with the top bidder.
We do not typically set a reserve price because reserve prices dampen bidding activity. Bidders are less aggressive when they think there is a hidden floor. The competitive tension that produces the best hammer price comes from letting the market discover its own top price. But you can set a reserve if you want to. And you always keep the accept-reject-counter power at the end. You are the seller. You control what happens.
The 3346 SE 10th Place Story: When the "Failed" Auction Still Closed
The 82% auction success rate is honest math. Of our 11 auctions, 9 closed at the auction and 2 were withdrawn without an offer.
The most interesting story from the sold nine is 3346 SE 10th Pl. That auction did not close at the live event. The bidding did not reach the seller's acceptance threshold at the Thursday close. Most sellers reading this would call that a failure. Here is what actually happened next.
Because the auction had generated eight full days of concentrated attention on the property (online listing views, four open houses, broker walkthrough activity, neighborhood buzz), the property was suddenly on many buyers' short lists. One of those buyers came back to us 89 days later with a serious offer at $635,000. The seller accepted. The property closed. The auction "failed" and delivered a closed sale. Not at the timeline of a typical auction, but at a price and a buyer who would not have existed without the auction marketing event.
This is why we count 3346 SE 10th in our nine successful closes. The auction is a marketing engine even when it does not produce a same-day winning bid.
The Two Withdrawn Auctions: Honest About Where This Does Not Work
Two of our 11 auctions were withdrawn without a sale: 7 Birch Blvd in Fort Myers (November 2025) and 3418 SW 5th Pl in Cape Coral (March 2026). We include these in our numbers because being honest about an 82% success rate is more credible than pretending to a fabricated 100%. And because the two failures teach the same lesson.
Every auction that has failed has failed for one of two reasons:
The property profile was not quite right for the auction workflow (we have gotten better at declining these upfront).
The seller's acceptance threshold was too far above what the market was willing to bid, and the seller was not willing to accept the top bid or counter to a bridge-able number.
Neither is a critique of the auction mechanism. Both are why we now spend the first conversation with an auction-curious seller talking through property fit and price expectations honestly before we agree to run the auction.
How We Can Help
If you have a Cape Coral waterfront home with a pool, not in an HOA, that either has been sitting on the traditional market or that you know is too unique for traditional comps, the Hawley Team's non-distressed seller auction may be the right marketing event for your property. Send us a note. The first conversation is honest about whether your property fits or not. If it does, we will walk you through the 8-day marketing event, the four open houses, the 3% buyer's premium math on your specific price, and the seller protections that keep you in control from launch through closing.
If it does not fit, we will tell you that and recommend the right traditional listing strategy instead.
Either way, you get the right conversation for your specific property.
Kim and Martin Hawley are Realtors with The Hawley Team at Keller Williams Fort Myers and the Islands.
The Hawley Team at Keller Williams Fort Myers and the Islands
(239) 420-9027 | martin@teamhawley.com | teamhawley.com
Disclosures
Auction addresses, dates, and hammer prices in this post are drawn from Hawley Team internal records. All addresses are public Multiple Listing Service (MLS) record. Buyer identities, seller identities, and closing details beyond the hammer price and close date are not disclosed and are protected under standard client confidentiality practice.
Hammer prices in this post are the winning bid at auction close. The buyer's total purchase price is the hammer price plus the 3% buyer's premium. Seller net proceeds depend on the specific listing agreement, the seller's chosen commission structure, and typical closing prorations, and are not calculable from the hammer price alone.
The 3% buyer's premium mechanic (2.5% buyer's concessions plus 0.5% Bid This Property platform service fee) reflects the Hawley Team's current auction workflow and is subject to change. Sellers considering an auction should verify the current premium structure with the Hawley Team at the time of any specific listing engagement.
Bid This Property (bidthisproperty.com) is the online auction platform used by the Hawley Team for our non-distressed seller auctions. The platform is a third-party service; the Hawley Team is a listing broker using the platform, not the platform operator.
Non-distressed seller auctions are a marketing mechanism, not a legal instrument. Sellers considering an auction should consult their Florida attorney and the Hawley Team's listing agreement before commitment.
Each Keller Williams office is independently owned and operated. Equal Housing Opportunity.
