Strassel Investors buys real estate, develops it, and resells it for a profit. Anew property is available, and Bud Strassel, the president and owner of Strassel Investors, believes it can be sold for $160,000. The current property owner asked for bids and stated that the property will be sold for the highest bid in excess of $100,000. Two competitors will be submitting bids for the property. Strassel does not know what the competitors will bid, but he assumes for planning purposes that the amount bid by each competitor will be uniformly distributed between $100,000 and $150,000.

a. Develop a worksheet that can be used to simulate the bids made by the two competitors. Strassel is considering a bid of $130,000 for the property. Using a simulation of 1000 trials, what is the estimate of the probability Strassel will be able to obtain the property using a bid of $130,000?

b. How much does Strassel need to bid to be assured of obtaining the property? What is the profit associated with this bid?

c. Use the simulation model to compute the profit for each trial of the simulation run. With maximization of profit as Strassel’s objective, use simulation to evaluate Strassel’s bid alternatives of $130,000, $140,000, or $150,000. What is the recommended bid, and what is the expected profit?