Has anyone ever sold a piece of county property using a broker pursuant to section 263.008 local govt code? It seems to allow the broker to accumulate the bids privately then present the highest offer to the CC without having to go through the bid process or public auction...I am assuming the broker publishes it and has a time frame set by the court to field offfers with a deadline at which time the highest offer is accepted.
any thoughts?

I have used this sales procedure before. It made it easier in that the Commissioners Court did not have to worry themselves with the minutiae of advertising as the broker did that and was able to list the property in the commercial databases that they had access to, etc. However, also from a practical standpoint, it was hard to get the broker to understand that any purchase offers still had to come back before the full court to discuss and formally accept. The broker system allows for some negotiation between the parties, but open meetings laws make this somewhat of a pain.

For example, the County obtains an appraisal for a piece of property that comes in at 1 million. This gives the county some idea of the fair market value of the property. The broker then suggests that the property is listed at this amount. No offers are presented for the asking price, however, there are 2 offers presented for significantly lower amounts. One is for $500,000 and the other is for $600,000. The broker brings these offers to the court for review at which point the county decides to counter at $800,000. This amount is presented to the proposed buyers, at which point they make different offers. This process continues going back and forth, until there is a ready and willing buyer at an agreeable price. The back and forth can present issues if the court can't make time to schedule special meetings to review the offers.

Thanks for the response....I can see advantages to this method and also disadvantages......we are going to be selling a minumum of 100 parcels and my opinion is the court and broker are going to get bogged down trying to use this method, if we can find a competent broker willing to touch it.....I am thinking sealed bids....set a floor....open them once...award to highest bidder and be done with it.