DOBSON -- They've come from all over, about 100 people packed in a small room of the Hampton Inn - basically the only thing off this interstate exit in rural Surry County. There are a few suits, a couple of teenagers who got dragged here, and a lot of good old boys in jeans and ballcaps.
They're here for the final chapter of Black Wolf - a nearby vineyard, winery and restaurant that shut down more than a year and a half ago, another casualty of the recession. The property has been on the market for months with no buyers. So on this day, a Friday morning in August, it's being auctioned to the highest bidder, no minimum price required.
The auction industry isn't exactly thriving in the recession, but it is staying busy. There are plenty of people looking to sell stuff, as they realize they've taken on a house they can't afford or their business runs out of customers. But there are fewer buyers, and most auctioneers will tell you that sales prices for almost all items are down.
Tom McInnis, a state champion auction caller, is at the front of the room. He eggs on the potential buyers, barely taking a breath and speaking so fast that it sounds more like singing than talking. Sometimes he raises both hands like he's Moses addressing the Israelites.
"Opportunity will only knock this morning," he tells the crowd. "It will not be knocking tomorrow."
Everything that's left of Black Wolf - the 54 acres of land, the restaurant building, the kitchen equipment, the wine fermenters, the barrels - will be auctioned off piecemeal in 12 "tracts." Then McInnis will see if any single buyer will trump those bids and buy it all.
The bidders, who punch calculators and furrow their brows as beach music plays in the background, are all looking for a deal. They like the thrill of hunting for treasure, besting their competitors, and making split-second decisions to spend thousands of dollars. But no one is reveling in Black Wolf's misfortune, especially not the other locals. This auction may be the quickest way to get Black Wolf off the market, but it's also just one last indignity.
Chris Longly, spokesman for the National Auctioneers Association, says auctions are the best method for selling in both good times and bad. In 2008, the latest date for which the NAA has data, live auctions generated revenue of $268 billion, up 37 percent from 2002. Car auctions were the biggest segment, accounting for about a third of total sales. Real estate auctions grew fastest.
Auctions bring transparency to pricing, force buyers to be decisive, and let sellers get the highest price that the market will bear because they pit bidders against each other, Longly says. "Wall Street is the largest auction there is," he says.
When the gavel falls
Black Wolf vineyards is one of those "bad times" stories. It went into foreclosure last year, and the lender, Carolina Farm Credit, put it on the market but couldn't sell it. So Carolina Farm Credit hired McInnis' employer, Iron Horse Auction of Rockingham, to finish the job.
Among Iron Horse's auctioneers is Sonny Weeks, a former commercial real estate broker and one-time golf pro who decided four years ago to go to auction school. He'd like to say it was because he saw the writing on the commercial real estate wall, but really it's because his mother-in-law was best friends with one of the instructors. Plus, he figured, it couldn't hurt to add another skill to his résumé.
Sometimes there's bad blood between auctioneers and real estate agents, because both think they have the best method for getting something sold. Weeks, 39 and married with three kids, feels fortunate to be an auctioneer right now instead of a broker, considering the devastation in commercial real estate. He also likes the finality of the auction sales: Once the gavel goes down, the property - be it a vineyard, condo, rare coin or baseball signed by Babe Ruth - is the seller's problem. Almost all auctions sell items "as is, where is."
"Can't get your financing? Well, I'm sorry. There's mold in the property? Well, I'm sorry," Weeks said. "You've really got to do your due diligence."
