Eric Lopez, a retired Tacoma paper-mill worker, was hoping to get a big piece of land yesterday at the land auction in Lynnwood, but he wasn't expecting to walk away with 640 acres of Nevada desert.

He did nonetheless — for a $6,000 down payment on the $75,000 property.

Lopez, 62, who buys land as investments, isn't sure what he's going to do with the parcel of sagebrush, rocks and rattlesnakes in Nevada's Pershing County. He's going to visit it first, he said.

Lopez's purchase was the largest, and arguably one of the most bizarre, of the parcels of land sold at the Lynnwood land auction yesterday.

In all, 220 parcels of land totaling nearly 2,000 acres in 12 states were sold for more than $2 million. The land varied in acreage and location — from large parcels in "the middle of nowhere," as Lopez described his land, to small lots in suburban neighborhoods.

The auction, held at the Lynnwood Convention Center, was organized by Auction Acres, a Portland-based company that has been buying land and organizing auctions like these for 1-½ years. The company is planning another next summer, said Stephen Seal, its president, though details have yet to be announced.

LandAuction.com, the only company that does similar auctions, according to Seal, has its own auction tentatively scheduled for Oct. 30 at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center in Seattle.

Large land auctions like these are a growing trend in a real-estate market fueled by investors looking for an alternative to Wall Street, said Frank Schnidman, senior fellow at the Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions at Florida Atlantic University.

When the auction began at 9:30 a.m., about 2,000 people were crowded into the nearly 12,000-square-foot convention auditorium. The bidders' reasons for coming varied.

Mike Berish, 47, who installs granite counters and flooring for a living, was hoping to buy 10 acres of remote land near Republic, Ferry County, for his family and friends to hunt, camp and hike on.

The Shoreline man came to the auction after researching the site on the Internet and calling the county assessor's office. After looking at the value of other properties in the area, he decided he would not bid more than $7,000.

"What? They just cleared it. That property is not worth more than $7,000," he lamented. "It's on a hill; there's no real access to it. ... These people are bidding on land because of the acreage, not because of the value of the land."

The parcel sold for $14,000.

Many bidders at Sunday's auction had never seen the land they were buying. Buyers think they can get enough information from the Internet — including satellite photos and maps, and assessment and tax information — to spend thousands on land sight unseen, said Schnidman.

Lo-Yu Sun, a 62-year-old Edmonds resident, was ready to buy land he knew little about and figure out what to do with it later.

An 80-acre parcel of south-central Washington, 11 miles north of the Columbia River, caught his eye. A final bid of $87,000 won him the parcel.

"It's close to the [Columbia] river; it should be pretty good," said Sun. He said he'll probably visit the land soon and then decide whether to sell it right away or just wait.

"Better to put money into land than into the bank," he said.

Hal Brittain, 49, from Snohomish, bought two small parcels, one near Othello, Adams County, and one in Arkansas.

"What the hell am I going to do with property in Arkansas? I don't know," he said.

He said the parcels were not the ones he'd intended to buy, but the price was right so he went for it. His bids totaled $6,500 for the lots — which he considered a deal.

"When it comes to dirt, they ain't making no more of it," he said.

Brian Alexander: 425-745-7813