Nantucket Beauty in Absolute Auction on Tuesday

(Photo courtesy New York Times)

UPDATE: Find out selling price

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ORIGINAL POST:

After waiting a year for someone to buy his gray-shingled Nantucket home — a ubiquitous sight on Cape Cod — Paul Steinfurth (above) is taking a risky leap in this chaotic, unsettled real estate economy: On Tuesday, he is selling his 7,500 sq ft home via “absolute auction,” which means the highest bid wins, no matter how low that bid is. Steinfurth, who is a real estate businessman in Miami,  bought the home in 2004 for $5.4 million. He’s not the only one with a high-end property that is sitting unsold in Nantucket. According to the NY Times article:

About 600 properties, or 6 percent of all those on the island, are for sale, but almost nothing is selling. “The damage is huge,” said Flint Ranney, a real estate broker on the island for 30 years and president of Denby Real Estate.

The estate sounds lovely and could result in a steal for the right person who is in the right place at the right time. It sits on 2 acres and has views of Nantucket and Nantucket Sound (from the widow’s walk),  5 beds, 6.5 baths and a one bedroom/one bath detached guest suite. It also has a heated pool and spa, detached 2-car heated garage, game room, home gym, and finished lower level.

Details of the Nantucket auction reveal that you need a $75,000 certified check to register to bid on the property and then a 10 percent down payment immediately after being declared the winning bid. It doesn’t say whether there is a starting bid.

Also, there’s no need to feel sorry for Mr. Steinfurth. He wasn’t a victim in the Madoff debacle — he already bought a bigger home on the island for $7.8 million and doesn’t want two big homes on Nantucket.