Please enjoy reading the good news about the success of the Sotheby’s Auction House as reported in today’s Wall Street Journal.  These results demonstrate an ever increasing consumer confidence amongst affluent consumers.

The ability to market real estate to this financially-qualified set of Sotheby’s customers is a privilege that our company enjoys exclusively. 

Their clients instantly recognize our for sale signage when they arrive in Southwest Florida.  We have multiple banner advertisements and links on Sothebys.com that drive traffic to our international real estate search on SothebysRealty.com. 

In addition, we have the opportunity to advertise our listings in the pages of Sotheby’s flagship periodical, AT AUCTION, that reaches the auction house’s top 25,000 clients.

Sotheby’s Sold $3.4 Billion of Art in First Half of  2011

By: KELLY CROW

Sotheby’s said it sold $3.4 billion of fine and decorative art in the first half of this year, up 55% from a year earlier, as the art market continues to recover from recession.  Sotheby’s also bested the six-month sales total of its privately held rival Christie’s International PLC, which notched $3.2 billion in sales for the first half of 2011.

Sotheby’s second-quarter profit increased 48% to $127.2 million, compared with $86.2 million a year earlier.  The New York-based auction house said its profit for the first half of the year increased 54% to $129.7 million, and its six-month revenue climbed 27.7% to $489.4 million, a record high for the company.  The Sotheby’s sale total included around $440 million in privately brokered sales of art.

An auctioneer at the Sotheby's auction house earlier this year.

Demand for the world’s priciest art and antiques has ticked steadily upward this year, as collectors seek fresh trophies and investors seek places to store their cash. That helped Sotheby’s sell 441 works for over $1 million apiece. Top sales included Egon Schiele’s $40 million “Houses with Laundry (Suburb II)” and Andy Warhol’s $20.2 million “Sixteen Jackies.”

But competition for major consignments is heating up. Sotheby’s collects fees from sellers and buyers for just about everything it auctions, and to woo the seller of a marquee work – say, a major Claude Monet – the house will often agree to take a smaller cut of its sale price than it might demand from the sale of an antique mirror. So far this year, a surge in higher-priced goods onto the marketplace has compelled Sotheby’s to lower its overall auction commission margin to 16.4%, down from 18.7% a year earlier and 20.8% the year before.

Sotheby’s operating expenses also increased 23% to $54.1 million during the first half of 2011, in part because some staff members earn pay perks in exchange for securing high-profile consignments of art.
Sotheby’s share price closed Wednesday at $39.94, up .5% for the day.

Posted 8.4.2011