Milton Gamson, 82; Pioneered Auctions for Sale of Real Estate

Milton Gamson, 82, considered the dean of real estate auctioneering and a pioneer in the auction sales technique, died Thursday of heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Gamson, always innovative in using advertising and building buyer enthusiasm about sales of properties, began staging auctions to sell key parcels more than 40 years ago. He founded Gamson and Flans Real Estate Auctioneers in 1979 and later Gamson and Associates in 1986.

Once considered a technique for selling distressed properties, auctions were utilized by Gamson to sell everything from tract homes and condos to Hollywood executives’ six-figure estates and Venice sites for shops and restaurants. He made auctions, in his words, “the marketing tool of choice for sellers to receive maximum return in the shortest amount of time.”

Gamson, who retired in 1995, made auctions particularly popular in the recession of the early 1990s when real estate sales slumped. He was listed in the 1998 “Who’s Wealthy in America,” a two-volume roster of the 110,000 most affluent Americans.