Home Rentals on the Auction Block?

Going, going...rented! In the current state of the real estate market, auctioning homes for sale has become quite common, but auctioning rentalhomes remains unusual. Certainly it seemed unusual to Neal VanDeRee, owner of the VanDeRee Auction Company in Venice, Fla., when his late father, George VanDeRee, who started the company, introduced the idea to him years ago while they stood in front of an unoccupied rental he owned.

"The previous tenants had moved out, and he and I were meeting with some new tenant prospects," VanDeRee told AOL Real Estate. "He said to me 'You know, someday I'd like to try and auction the rent for this house.'... My first reaction was that it did not make any sense."

More recently, VanDeRee decided his father's idea was not so crazy after all.