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Concierge Auctions CEO Chad Roffers
In the ultra-luxury market, the delta between a seller’s lofty expectations and the price that homebuyers believe is merited can be substantial. Real estate auctions can close that gap on a shorter timetable than a traditional real estate listing.
Concierge Auctions’ 2025 Luxury Homes Index, an annual report on the movements in the high-end real estate market, found that while a median-priced home typically takes less than 60 days to sell, luxury properties spend 319 days on the market on average.
The Luxury Homes Index further broke down the data by putting luxury home sales into two categories: Those that sold within 180 days and those that took longer to sell.
The report found that among luxury homes that sold in 180 days or less, the average number of days on the market was just 89. But among homes that spent more than 180 days for sale, the average days on market was 514.
“The data says that if you haven’t sold your property within 90 days, you’re in it for the long haul,” said Concierge Auctions CEO Chad Roffers during an interview on Friday. He noted that Concierge Auctions has been studying the luxury market for a decade, through lots of ups and downs, and said those findings are remarkably consistent.
The fact is, it is hard to sell a rare property, even in the best market, according to Roffers.
What has changed, he said, is that consumers’ perception of what’s “too long” is getting shorter, while the number of days it takes a luxury property to sell, on average, is increasing.
One reason he gave for shifting perceptions is the relatively new availability of Zillow and other property data websites.
“Consumers just look at the history of a property. If it’s been on the market, quote, unquote, too long, it’s just very hard to get them to pull the trigger, because they assume that there’s something wrong,” Roffers said.
Potential buyers see the number of days a property has spent on the market, and they wonder, “If it’s so great, why is it still for sale?”
It’s not a problem that can be pointed to in an inspection or during diligence.
“It’s more of just the psychological element of: If that property was so desirable, it should have sold in a day. So if it hasn’t sold in a day, I don’t want it,” Roffers explained.
What it results in for most sellers is a large reduction in price. According to the report, a luxury home that sells within 180 days achieves 94 percent of its original asking price. For homes that take longer to sell, that percent drops to 81.
Aspirational prices that lead to many months if not years on the market, and a series of price reductions, may come from the heart and not the head. Homeowners may have an emotional attachment to a home, Roffers pointed out.
He also described the predicament real estate brokers find themselves in: Agents need inventory to sell. If the seller has price expectations that are more than the market will bear, an agent may agree on an unrealistic listing price rather than letting a competitor have that listing.
Roffers advises his friends to interview three great brokers and hire the person they connect with and have the best chemistry with — because any of the three top brokers will get results.
“But I also say, even if you don’t hire the broker who had the lowest suggested list price, use that list price,” he said.
He explained that though the temptation is to list for the highest suggested price, it’s the lowest suggested price that is most likely to be the highest achievable sales price.
He said that often, early on after listing a property, an offer will come, and that’s the time to make a deal — in the first weeks or first month or two of being on the market.
“You really need to try to make that offer work, because time is still on your side,” he said.
Wait any longer, and the seller loses negotiating leverage as the perception that the property has been on the market “forever” grows.
“You need to be really realistic and look at the alternative, which is, in all likelihood, a very lengthy process, and ultimately selling for substantially less,” Roffers said.
For a property that is truly special and irreplaceable, with no comparable sales, he acknowledged it’s tough to approximate what the ultimate sales price will be.
“That’s where I have some grace with how properties oftentimes get priced because sometimes there just aren’t comps,” he said.
If a home isn’t selling at the asking price, Concierge Auctions offers an alternative to simply reducing the price.
“If you’re not finding demand reasonably quickly — and my definition of reasonably quickly is 90 to 180 days — I think going down the price reduction path isn’t the right approach,” Roffers said. “You got to have a different strategy to reestablish urgency and bring all the buyers to the table at once.”
A recent example is the sale at auction of La Dune, a 4-acre, two-parcel oceanfront compound in Southampton Village on Gin Lane. It was listed for $145 million in 2017 and $150 million in 2022 with no takers. Concierge Auctions hosted an auction in Manhattan in January 2024, and La Dune sold for $88.48 million, inclusive of a buyer’s premium. The winning bid among seven bidders was reportedly 121.2 percent higher than the opening bid.
The final sales price was 59 percent of the peak listing price but still the most expensive sale in the Hamptons last year.
“The local buyer pool knew about the property,” Roffers said. “It had been for sale for a long time, and we needed to expand the pool of buyers and bring new people to the table. And so I think that’s where, in addition to the local market, we bring that global audience. And so I think that’s where we shine.”
He acknowledged that the auction route is not for everyone.
Concierge Auctions can offer a seller results in 60 days, with a range of likely price outcomes, he said, or a seller can wait six months to five years to see where the market goes and wait for a buyer.
He said many Concierge Auctions clients come from financial services and appreciate that $85 million today is worth more to them than $100 million in five years.
“Our process is suited well for somebody who can think like that, and can make a good business decision like that,” Roffers said. “It’s not great for somebody who says, ‘You know what, my dream price is $100 million, and I’ll keep the property in the market for 10 years until the right buyer comes along. And if not, I’ll just keep it.’ That’s not a good client for us, because I would argue they’re not a market seller.”
No matter the route the seller of an ultra-luxury property takes, the buyer pool will be shallow.
According to New World Wealth, there are slightly fewer than 30,000 individuals on the planet worth more than $100 million. And according to Fortune, only about 3,000 of them are billionaires.
“We have about 250,000 consumers that subscribe to our platform. About 16,000 of those are what are called private clients that we’ve transacted with over the last two decades, and within that, there’s 367 billionaires,” Roffers said.
And he said that though the number of headlines about $100 million properties selling in the Hamptons, Aspen, Palm Beach or St. Tropez may make it look like it’s normal, in fact, “it’s very difficult to sell these expensive properties. Very, very difficult.”
Location is another limiting factor.
“The other thing that’s hard about real estate is unlike a painting or a car that you can ship to Dubai or Hong Kong or wherever, the person has to be excited about the community where the property is and want to spend time there,” Roffers said.
What To Know About The Auction Process
Roffers’s advice to bidders is to be curious. “You never know what’s going to happen at an auction, and what I hear most from buyers is they regret not signing up to bid,” he said.
Concierge Auctions makes homes available for viewing and inspections for a month, and then opens bidding for a 10-day period.
“There is ample time for people to get qualified and register for bid. It’s also very transparent,” Roffers said. “... For a buyer, you know exactly what another buyer is willing to pay, and you have time to say, Do I want to pay more than them?”
He said that especially in economic markets that are a little turbulent, potential buyers hold back because they don’t want to feel like they are overpaying.
“I think our process lets them make a rational decision, and even if they have to pay more than the other bidders to win, at least they know that they’re not paying 2x what they should,” he said.
And all auctions have a reserve price.
“It’s called a market reserve,” Roffers said. “And so a seller knows, going into their auction, what their minimum price will be.”
Contracts are drafted before the auction is held, so sellers and buyers go in knowing exactly what they will have to sign. There are no contingencies or givebacks based on what might come up during inspection, because inspections were all completed prior to the auction.
Though extreme extenuating circumstances, like the 2023 Maui fires, have led Concierge Auctions to postpone an auction, Roffers said rarely are auctions canceled or postponed due to outside forces.
“For quality properties — you know, knocking on wood — I’ve never seen a time where quality buyers haven’t shown up,” Roffers said. “Even in the depths of the Great Recession, they showed up.”
Read the Luxury Homes Index at conciergeauctions.com/luxury-homes-index.
