IRVINE, CALIF. — With online real estate transactions becoming increasingly competitive, Auction.com is rebranding as Ten-X and will expand its platform in the coming months to include options that will give sellers the choice of executing transactions using an online auction or a non-auction process online.
When it relaunches in March, the company will feature three websites, including Ten-X Commercial, a dedicated site for commercial real estate. Ten-X Homes will be dedicated to residential real estate. Auction.com will continue, but will focus on investment properties for residential real estate buyers.
“We’re shifting from a disposition platform for distressed assets into a marketplace where people can come and buy traditional, high-quality properties,” says Rick Sharga, the company’s executive vice president. “That has been a big change for us over the past 18 months.”
In mid-March, the company’s new transactional platforms will be on display at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. The annual set of film, interactive media and music festivals attracts entrepreneurs and creative types.
Ten-X will launch Ten-X Homes in Miami, Denver, Dallas and Phoenix — all of which are projected to be strong residential markets in 2016, says Sharga.
In the first quarter, Ten-X is expected to announce some programs for commercial real estate brokers.
“We view brokers as customers, not as competitors. We’re putting some programs together for commercial real estate brokers who would like to do business with us,” says Sharga.
The company’s new transaction platform, Ten-X Commercial, is vitally important at a time when a broad audience is needed to sell assets, emphasizes Sharga. Auction.com has more than 1 million visitors to its site every month, and has connected with buyers from more than 100 countries.
“What will change in March is the nature of the transaction model itself,” says Sharga. “We will continue to have online auctions, but we will be adding transactions that feel more like traditional off-line transactions, but will be handled on the Internet. We’re trying to make buying and selling real estate online something that people can do with confidence. We want to build on the success that we’ve already had.”
The change for Auction.com follows a strong year in transaction volume.
“We’ve had a great year in 2015 in hospitality and retail, and we set an online record with the $96 million online sale of an office complex in Manhattan Beach, Calif. We also do a lot of multifamily sales and industrial real estate,” says Sharga.
Since 2007, Auction.com has facilitated the sale of more than 200,000 residential and commercial properties valued at more than $35 billion.
How did the new company name come to be? Well, more than 500 different names were considered before finally settling on Ten-X, explains Sharga.
“We wanted a name that was easy to remember and that would connote an experience that was 10 times better than what people were used to.”
Headquartered in Irvine and Silicon Valley, California, Ten-X has offices in key markets nationwide. Investors in the company include Google Capital and Stone Point Capital.
Since receiving a $50 million investment from Google Capital in March 2014, Auction.com has undergone a series of changes and expansions, according to HousingWire.com, an independent news source.
For example, Auction.com has recruited several senior executives with extensive experience with some of the web’s biggest players, including Yahoo, eBay and LinkedIn.
— Randy Shearin