I will be going to a county sheriff sale in my hometown in a couple months. When I go to the County Sheriff’s website, I can look up past sheriff sales.
It seems 90% of the homes bought at sheriff sales were bought by banks. Does anyone have any insight on this?? I am under the assumption that the bank that forecloses on a property has a rep at the sale, and they bid up to the money amount of the foreclosure. Is this correct??
Otherwise, why would a bank be interested in buying a property from a foreclosure sale???
I don’t know what the exact rules are in your area but generally the lender will be there to protect their interest. In most areas the lender is allowed to bid up to the amount of the loan. The reason that most are taken by the lenders is that the other bidders bid less than the amount owed. If the lender feels that the property will sell for at least the amount due, they will place a bid for that amount and then have a broker put the place up for sale.
Banks are not interested at all in taking back the property at auction. They just want the money owed to them.
If no one shows up, the bank automatically gets it.
Banks will always bid what they are owed, and they are the ones who start the bidding - although they normally do not bid the property up once they have opened the bidding.
Even if there are investors there, they may only be willing to pay so much for the property, and the bank’s opening bid will knock them all out right away. So there will be one bid only on the property, and it will be the bank’s.