ST. PETERSBURG — After housing thousands of travelers from as far as Munich and as close as Palm Harbor, the Mansion House Bed & Breakfast is closed and going on the auction block.
The 12-room inn made up of two homes, each about 95 years old, was foreclosed on by Florida Bank last year. A live auction is scheduled to take place on the property at 105 Fifth Ave. NE at 1 p.m. March 31.
"They've had a lot of lookers and lots of interest but no one has pulled the trigger. The bank thought this would be a way of saying: 'Come on guys, pull the trigger,' " said Rob Barber, the auctioneer with Accelerated Real Estate Services handling the sale.
While some want to operate both houses as a bed and breakfast, several people want just one house as a single family home.
Barber will auction the two properties individually first. Then he will auction them together with a starting bid of the two combined selling prices to see if they would go for more money as a pair, he said.
There will be an opening bid of $200,000 for each of the houses. The owners who lost the property to the bank paid $1.2 million for it in 2005. The property is assessed for tax purposes at $675,000.
There will be a preview of the property March 21 from 4 to 6 p.m. No furnishings are for sale.
"I foresee this being a nice opportunity," Barber said. "Downtown is hot. I could throw a stone to Beach Drive from here."
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