Stan Pinkus needed to unload his three-bedroom Venice home earlier this year, but prospects of a quick sale looked dim in a buyer’s market. He decided to hire veteran auctioneer Neal Van De Ree to sell his home. “I felt it was the best way to get out in a dropping real estate market,” says Pinkus, who now lives in Sarasota. “The auction worked out well, and I got a fair price for my property.”

Auctioneer Neal Van De Ree’s business was up 35% last year.

With a rising number of new and existing homes for sale, more Florida homeowners are turning to auctions to sell their properties — especially luxury homes, where there are fewer potential buyers. “Our company handled about 95 properties in Florida in 2006 with a 35% increase in transaction volume,” says Van De Ree, president of Van De Ree Auction in Venice.

The National Auctioneers Association (NAA) recently reported residential real estate auctions grew by 12.5% in 2006, generating $16 billion. While the NAA does not have state breakdowns, longtime Florida member Marty Higgenbotham, president of Higgenbotham Auctioneers International in Lakeland, says, “We’ve had a significant upward change in the last 18 months in residential real estate activity.”

For owners or developers, a primary benefit is knowing a home will be sold on a certain date. “If you’re planning to move, you can get the fair market value of your home and take your equity out of the property now,” Van De Ree says.

For buyers, auctions offer an opportunity to pick up a potential bargain that has already been checked by the auction company. “It’s very different from buying a foreclosed property on the courthouse steps,” says Van De Ree, who runs the 20-person firm founded by his father, George Van De Ree, in 1934.

Van De Ree says his firm continues to do more business every year whether the market is “on an upswing or downswing.”