Our Areas of Specialty

As a full-service auction company, Schrader can professionally market all real estate and equipment assets. Over the years, we've developed deep expertise in several key markets. Our long-term focus in these areas allow us to deliver unmatched experience and insight.

As creators of the M3 system, we are the national innovators of the open-forum multi-tract real estate auction. We apply that same innovation and strategic thinking to every auction we conduct.

Farm Land

Timberland

Schrader has sold thousands of acres of timberland in the last several years alone. Whether your property has already been timbered or is a sanctuary of shade, we know how to reach buyers who recognize its value, and we can offer timber separately. Having worked with international paper-product companies in multiple states, no property is too large or too far away.

• Thousands of acres sold nationwide
• Options to sell standing timber separately
• Experienced with international timer and paper companies

Recreational

Commercial

Schrader handles all aspects of commercial sales – inventory reduction, equipment liquidation, platted lots, standing structures, appraisals, and intellectual property. Our award-winning marketing team ensures your property reaches the right audience with strong visual impact.

• Equipment liquidation and inventory reduction
• Platted lots and standing structures
• Appraisals, intellectual property, and more
• Corporate-level visual marketing

Farm Equipment

The Maximum Marketing Method (M3): A Schrader exclusive

Only Schrader offers the M3 Auction System, because we are the companies that invented and perfected it. The M3 System achieves the highest possible value by:

• Offering the property in multiple tracts to broaden the pool of bidders.
• Allowing bidders to bid on individual tracts, combinations of tracts or the entire property in an unrestricted process that promotes greater competition for each tract, leading to higher price

What makes M3 Program Different?

Because of Schrader's auction success, other companies have scrambled to develop their own "multi-parcel" or "multi-tract" programs. Don't be misled! No other program even approaches our level of success. Here are just a few of the reasons why efforts to copy our methods have failed:

• We know more than our competitors. We introduced M3 more than three decades ago, and we have been perfecting our systems the entire time. During that time, we have closely guarded our proprietary methods so that our unprecedented results are available only to Schrader customers.
• We work harder. We study your land in painstaking detail, spending as much time as it takes to fully understand it. Depending on the property, we will view and photograph it from the air and from ground level. We become experts on the soil, the wildlife, the timber, the history, the contours and any other factors that can help us market the property. Sellers frequently comment that we know their property better than they know it themselves.
• We optimize the division into tracts. While our competitors may propose tracts based on a map and a quick ride around the property, our exhaustive research allows us to organize the tracts in a way that gets the best results on auction day.
• We use superior auction day methods. We developed and copyrighted software to efficiently compute the best way to sell a multi-tract property at any given moment during the auction. The program ranks the different possible ways to sell the property in descending order from the highest total price.
• We allow Internet bidding. We have integrated M3 with an Internet auction system that allows remote bidders to participate via the Internet.

It is my view that there have been three important auction innovations in this century: 1) Rex Schrader's system for multi-parcel real estate auctions, 2) William Vickrey's second price sealed bid auction for which he received a Nobel Prize, and 3) Sheldon Good's pooled condominium auction in which the winning bidder acquires the right to choose. Of these three, the Schrader system represents the most profound innovation.

Peter F. Colwell
ORER Professor of Real Estate, and Professor of Finance, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

M3 permits virtually infinite possibilities. Let's say we're selling 40 tracts of land. Using M3, we have had more than 980,000 different possible ways to sell the property!

This unrestricted process promotes greater competition, which in turn creates higher prices for our sellers.

Online Bidding Options

Schrader has made significant investments into its digital bidding tools to optimize bidding flexibility for potential buyers. We have developed our own in-house software specifically designed to allow for easy online bidding on a multi-tract auction of any size. This benefits the exposure of our seller clients' properties as bidders have the flexibility to attend the auction in person and bid live, or bid online if they are non-local. All the while a live operator is on standby if any bidder runs into technological issues.

Digital Mapping

The Maximum Marketing Method (M3) allows the seller to identify provisional auction tracts to optimize the bidding options available to prospective buyers. Prospective buyers are then able to determine the most valuable tract divisions and/or combinations through the auction process.

Schrader uses sophisticated GPS and GIS technology, combined with its marketing expertise, to leverage the inherent advantages of the M3 method.

Many national corporations and other large acreage holders are looking to Schraders to market diverse land at auction throughout the United States. Owners often want to act quickly. Schrader is prepared with mobile mapping technology and digital mapping software. Using this technology, we are able to help the seller identify potential auction tracts within a matter of a few days. This decreases the lead time getting the property to auction and saves up-front costs.

This technology also benefits the potential buyer by providing valuable information before the auction, including customized aerial photographs of the individual tracts and preliminary acreage and boundary information.

The corners, boundaries and acreages of newly-created parcels are established by a professional land surveyor after the optimal tract divisions and/or combinations have been identified through the auction process.

Graphical Bidding Viewer

Another Auction Day innovation Schrader has recently created is the Schrader Graphical Bidding Viewer™ (SGBV). This patent pending software was designed to assist the bidder during the auction process. It allows the bidder to instantaneously know if the tract or tracts he is bidding on is in a winning position. During the auction, those in attendance can look up at a large, full-color graphic aerial of the property with each tract numbered. Bidders who are in a winning position will see in real-time, the tract or tracts they are bidding on filled in with their assigned color. This gives everyone in attendance a way to graphically see in a bright full-color display how the property would be sold at any given time during the auction.

Full Service Video Department

Property videos can be taken of your property and edited in our full-service video department to be used at all inspection dates and online through our website during the marketing period. Video can be taken on the ground and from the air to show the best features of your property. Videos are also posted to our web page giving viewers the opportunity to see the details of your property from across the country.

Award-Winning Marketing Department

Our fully-staffed marketing department handles all aspects of promoting your auction to prospective buyers. Winner's of over 60 national and international awards, the Schrader marketing team can put together an advertising campaign that is one of the best in the auction industry.

Professional Digital Photography

A full-time professional photographer is available to capture breathtaking views of your property in a high-resolution digital format to be used throughout the marketing campaign in brochures, ads, and online. Ground shots as well as aerial photography through the use of the most recent models of drones can be taken to enhance the features of your property.

A Reflection of Our Dedication to Excellence, Innovation, and Client Success

"The recognition is nice, but the real importance is that it recognizes the quality of our work in marketing upcoming auctions and getting results for our sellers. We take pride in every aspect of our promotion." - R.D. Schrader, President

Recognition of Marketing Excellence

Attempting to best represent the properties of their sellers, Schrader represents the best in national and state auction advertising. We're proud to raise the standard for the auction industry with both innovative auction concepts (like our M3 system) and creative brochures, newspaper ads, and web presence.

• 5-Time recipient of the National Auction of the Year by the National Auctioneers Association.
• Awarded 2 First Place National Awards in the 2024 National Auctioneers Marketing Competition.
• 2024 National Auctioneers Association - Auction of the Year Award Finalist.
• 150 1st Place Awards for National Advertising Excellence

With several in-house, bachelor-degreed designers working on top-of-the line equipment, our auction brochures and newspaper ads have caught the attention of bidders and contest judges alike. Schrader has won over 50 advertising awards in the past three years.

Guaranteed Exposure for Every Auction

Each auction we conduct is featured on its own dedicated page within our website, enabling us to track page views and provide comprehensive traffic reports to sellers. In addition, each auction is highlighted directly on the Schrader homepage, making it easy for visitors - whether directed from print advertising, direct mail, or other marketing channels - to find specific listings. With over 3.38 million hits across our site each month, every auction benefits from substantial, guaranteed exposure.

Meet the Team

The Schrader Marketing/Graphic Design Team has won over 150 National First Place Awards for Advertising Excellence and numerous 1st Place State Design Contests/ Marketing Competitions since 1993.

Industry Leadership and Innovation

• Top Agricultural Auction Company 2024 / AGRI Business Review
• Deal of the Year Winners 2023 / The Land Report
• Conducted multiple $50M+ transactions
• Agents and staff hold numerous leadership roles within the Auctioneer Association and Realtors Land Institute