Manhattan ? For more than six weeks, prospective buyers for 647 acres in four Kansas locations visited the properties, met with Purple Wave Auction personnel and returned to their PCs to cast their bids.

And after the process culminated with Wednesday’s live portion of the auction, the properties had sold for a total of $532,500.

The land was sold in four tracts in Morris, Pottawatomie and Chase counties using Purple Wave’s unique process that lets live and Internet bidders compete on the same footing.

“Every day, we keep hearing stories of people trying for months or years to sell a property without so much as a single offer,” said Aaron McKee, president of Purple Wave. “Yet, this land attracted 70 bidders either online or in person, and we had 332 Internet bids before we ever began the live auction,” he added.

Under the auction rules, Internet bidding was closed one hour before the live bidding was scheduled to begin. The properties included 320 acres near Council Grove, 240 acres northwest of Westmoreland, 60 acres south of Westmoreland, and 27 acres in Chase County.