Have you ever hung out around the County Courthouse on the first Tuesday of the month?

The County Courts CAN make for some great people watching on any day of the month (ok, any weekday…), but the first Tuesday on the month here in Georgia is a little more special.  There are deals to be had…  property deals.

OK, maybe there are deals to be had.  Honestly, there wasn’t much action on the foreclosure auction front… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The the tax record on the County’s website said that the sale would take place at 8:30am…

First up were the tax sales. They started a moment after 10:00am.  There were six parcels to be auctioned off.  Five of them sold… and might have been good deals.  The final property was unable to attract a bid, and there were a few chuckles from the assembled thirty or so people.  None started above $1500 (except the last one) and the final bids ranged from just under $10,000 to just under $30,000…  I wasn’t there for those properties and hadn’t done any background, so I don’t know if they were good deals or not…

A few minutes later, some attorneys started showing up for the foreclosure auctions.  The banks involved had predetermined their minimum pricing.

Each lawyer would stake out his spot and begin “the chant.”  It consisted of the legalese that they were required to read before accepting bids.  They were quietly “speed-talking” the required verbiage in their own space… bidders wanding near to try to figure out which property they were representing.  They would each briefly mention the address of the property and the tax ID… before anyone knew what they were doing there.

It was largely the same crew of bidders, even though there was no actual bidding…

• Mr. Bored This guy would mention his bid as if it was bothersome.  As he was outbid, he would slightly top the new bid… trying to sound like he would rather be anywhere but here…
• Miss Aggressive She actually punched the air with several of her bids.  It was funny as she outbid Mr. Bored… the juxtaposition between her excitement and his “duty to respond”…
• Mr. Business He effectively combined boredom and excitement…  It was obviously a duty for him to bid, he seemed to not care about the outcome.  At the same time, he was quick to react…
• Mrs. Pre-occupied Perhaps she couldn’t be bothered to bid.  She would bid… but it just seemed that she was annoyed that the auctioneer expected her to stop her other conversations to pay attention…

In the end, I’m sure I missed some of the sales.  There were anywhere from 2-7 lawyers chanting at any given time.  But the one thing I did notice… nothing was sold.  One of the properties that I was familiar with was going for something between two and a half and three times what it would fetch on the open market…

Deals DO come up at auction.  But, you have to know the properties and what you are willing to spend to get them… BEFORE you get there.  And you have to know the players… who will be auctioning off the property.

from Gwinnett Garage Guy