Lately, the monthly foreclosure auction has captured my attention.
The Travis County Foreclosure Auction happens monthly on the Travis County Courthouse steps. The Tax Foreclosure Sale and the Bank Foreclosure Sale are scheduled to to be held at the same time, at 10:00 am on the first Tuesday of the month, rain, shine or whine. Tax foreclosures happen when people don’t pay their taxes on their property. Bank foreclosures happen when people don’t pay their mortgages or HELOCs (Home Equity Line of Credit). When someone loses their property to tax foreclosure, they have a statutory right to redeem (reacquire) their property within a certain period of time – 6 months, or two years, depending on the situation. Bank foreclosures don’t have this protection in Texas.
If you decide to go to the auction, be warned: this is not for the faint of heart.
The rundown for the April 6th 2010 Travis County Foreclosure Auction:
- Over 850 properties were originally posted for the sale, 21 days ago.
- Wendy Alexander, one of the Trustees with the majority of the list, had approximately 150 properties to auction.
- Many properties get “pulled back” prior to the sale, meaning the owners saved their property from foreclosure.
- After reading a brief disclaimer and set of rules, Ms. Alexander conducted her portion of the auction, taking approximately 45 seconds to a minute and a half per property. While she was auctioning her list, other Trustees were conducting their own auctions in close proximity.
- The Tax Foreclosure Auction at the other end of the steps made it difficult to hear.
- Winning bidders were given approximately 5 minutes to pay in full for the properties they won, or the property would be returned to the pile to be re-auctioned.
- I counted about 100 attendees, most of whom were men in their 30s to 50s.
- Only 8 to 10 were actively engaged in the bidding, most of the rest were observers.
- Most properties were bought back by the banks, but a handful sold to individual investors or real estate investment companies.
- From a post-auction report I purchased, only 239 of the original 850+ sold and of those, it looks like fewer than 30 were purchased by investors.
Keeping up with the auction was grueling: fast paced, difficult to hear and crowded! We’ll be there next month, too!
I can hardly wait to see these properties when they hit the market again in a few months, hopefully cleaned up and ready to become HOME again.
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