Buy your own private island

There are few possessions more lavish and exclusive than a private island. Such coveted properties offer beaches devoid of tourists, as much serenity as you can bear, and accessibility only by boat, plane or helicopter. Not to mention exceedingly high prices.

And now, like everything from used cosmetics to multi-million dollar paintings, private islands are available at auction.

"Auctions work for high-end trophy homes, so we figured why not for islands, which lend themselves to similar markets," explains Steven L. Good, chairman and chief executive of Sheldon Good & Company, one of the world's largest real estate auction companies.

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On Aug. 10, Sheldon Good will hold what it says is the world's first large-scale private island auction. With the highest bid, you can join the lengthy list of well-known people, including Mel Gibson, Marlon Brando and Richard Branson, who have owned private islands.

Properties that lend themselves to being auctioned are typically ones that are harder to value, he says. Good likens private islands to unique works of art, such as those by Van Gogh or Monet. In both cases, auctions can prove advantageous because the items are unique, and sellers don't know what price the market will bear.

What's more, an auction can provide marketing hype.

Five islands will appear on the auction block in what the firm hopes will be a series of global island auctions. (Good had initially planned to auction all five on the same day, but the company says weather-related issues and increased demand has forced it to postpone the auction of two islands.) Bids will remain private, and each property will go to the highest bidder.

The initial group of private paradises is nothing if not diverse. Spanning the globe from tropical Papua, New Guinea, to Saratoga County, N.Y., they have minimum price tags between $1.2 million for Green Island, a 24-acre wooded island with a log house in upstate New York, and $18 million for Thatch Cay, a 230-plus-acre undeveloped island in the U.S. Virgin Islands that has made our most recent list of the most expensive private islands.

That variation thrills George Story, owner of General Timber Corporation as well as two of the properties - Green Island and Thompson Island, a 46-acre property also in Saratoga County - at Thursday's auction.

"To put my islands in with these big islands is going to attract a lot of buyers that I couldn't otherwise afford to attract," he explains. "If I just did my islands singularly or gave them to a realtor somewhere, I would never be able to put that kind of money into marketing them. It's a great marketing tool for exposure."

But the decision to group the islands was a strategic one, according to Good. "We wanted to offer a variety of properties to a variety of markets on a worldwide basis, recognizing that there might be limited overlap," he says. "But because this is the first time this is being done, we're trying to get a feel for what the price points are where these auctions are likely to be more successful."

The company, along with partner Cheyenne Morrison, owner of Coldwell Banker Morrison's Private Islands in Queensland, Australia, hopes to make this a regular program. They already have seven or eight additional islands under consideration.

While the initial fee, which ranges from $50,000 to $100,000, proves a deterrent to some owners, the auction format is highly appealing to many.

The multiple bidder structure breeds competition among potential buyers, and also assures the process will be complete at a finite date and time, explains Morrison, who has the largest catalog of private islands in the world, with 180-plus properties valued over $550 million.

Isaac Levy, a principal of Thatch Cay, an island just off the coast of St. Thomas that has been on the market for three-plus years, was particularly attracted to the prospect of sophisticated and informed buyers.

"I wanted to eliminate those people who come in for a look, tie you up in the escrow process and then don't have the financing," he says. "[An auction] eliminates the riffraff. You don't go to an auction unless you're ready to buy and you're capable of purchasing."

But that due diligence should include more than a mere consideration of location and price. Morrison suggests potential buyers consider factors like topography, accessibility and utilities before placing a bid.

What's more, he says it takes a certain type of person--an individualistic, do-it-yourself type--to own a private island.

"Having an island is like having a yacht," he says. "It is a totally self-contained system and you have to be able to know how everything works and know how to fix something if it doesn't."

After all, a private island doesn't come equipped with a handyman, much less a hardware store down the street.