The Courthouse Auction Scam for Buyers, RealtyTrac and Great Falls Virginia Foreclosures

The Courthouse Auction Myth — Fairfax County and Northern Virginia Great Falls Foreclosures

Jay Seville: Hi, I’m Jay Seville, owner of Just New Listings.com realty and this morning I’m on the way to the Courthouse for an auction in Fairfax, Virginia. I’m going to look around about six properties that are scheduled to be auctioned according to the information in RealtyTrac. Now, what I’m wanting to find out is how accurate or bogus the Realty Track information is, whether the whole auction scenario is just a time sky. I think that buyers are often mislead or deceived by or whether it’s a viable opportunity for regular buyers, people who are looking to buy home and move in to it as their primary residence. In other words, can you pull this off to a regular buyer or is the auction scenario something where you have to attend, you know, twenty of these auctions a month to have a chance at getting a property and why or why not if that’s the case. So, let me go check this out and I’ll let you know what I find.

First thing I noticed was that the property at Great Falls Virginia foreclosures auction of five or six bedrooms and the, of course, the school district listed for auction today at 9:30. I found it in the MLS, having been under contract about a month ago as a short sale. So, I’m pretty sure that the auction for it has been cancelled, its just that the information in RealtyTrac is bogus and old and is misleading consumers. I’ll know more about this shortly and I’ll check out all six properties in MLS and we’ll see if we can trust Realty Track as a source of information and whether the auction scenario really is viable for regular buyers or sort of a time sky and it’s just not realistic. Male Speaker 1: …as 179 section 3 Ben Franklin Park, with agreements thereon about the $20,000 cash or check [Indiscernible] [0:01:58] discharged and the opening bid is $369,000. Going once, going twice, final call for 369,000 and so [Indiscernible] [0:02:15]. Evan Trustee Sale 7443 Hall Crest, Mc Lean Virginia, 6102. [Indiscernible] [0:02:40] with the first amount of $520,000 from Blue County Park and [Indiscernible] [0:02:45], dated December 12, 2005 according to the [Indiscernible] [0:02:47] in the county of Fairfax, Virginia. [Indiscernible][0:02:55].

Jay Seville: All right. So, I just attended the auction at Courthouse in Fairfax VA real estate. I have found on RealtyTrac over 20 properties, maybe 25 properties that were scheduled for auction today. And in the end all of them were cancelled except four of the properties. And I spoke to several investors the same group pretty much shows-up everyday. There was about eight of them and several confirmed to me that yes approximately 90 percent of all the scheduled auctions on RealtyTrac are actually cancelled. So, only four properties came up, all of them were bought back by the bank except for one, which an investor bought, a condo at the Hallstead. He got a one-bedroom unit for I think [Indiscernible] [0:04:01] or 200 and he is going to probably rent it out. Not a sweet property at all because they are only selling about 220 to Home Buyers Birmingham.

So, the conclusion is, you know, for someone who wants to buy a particular property and move in to it as their primary residence, overwhelmingly its something you think, you can just come to the auction and buy it you are dead wrong. It will overwhelmingly be, the likelihood is that it will be cancelled. If its any opportunity whatsoever there will be 10 other people interested in buying it. These game for investors because it is a numbers game. You have to have this specific property you are interested in, you know, in advance lay it out on your table, on your notepad or whatever, free research and then you come everyday and you try, you hope that yours actually comes up for sale. So, it’s again 90 percent of these are just cancelled. So, most the time if you have property you are interested its cancelled anyway, it’s not going to even be there. But that’s not how it works at this US Florida Property Management website, because these guys ensure that there is a 100% surety in the claims that potential buyers for residencies make. But if you come, you know, three days a week every week, once in awhile a property you are interested in and [Indiscernible] [0:05:15] pop up and then, you know, you will have the chance to buy at times you will be [Indiscernible] [0:05:20] are only one who had marked out ahead of time.

Bottom line is from my own observation in talking to several investors here who are here everyday, instance game for investors. If you are looking for your own primary resident you have almost zero chance of accomplishing that through the auction process because it is almost never going to even happen, the property thing option and two, if its any good the opening bids will be up there and you will be competing against someone else and three, you know, I have seen $2 million homes which is someone would have got them for a million, $600,000 for example and thought they were getting a good deal. Well I’ve been in the homes and seen how they can easily need $300 thousand worth of water damage repairs etc.  Sometimes realtors miss stuff, that’s why it’s important to have experts like BC Restoration Services check the house for water damage or mold before you buy it. You may think you are getting a property that you can move in to, spend 50 grand for renovations and long behold you don’t realize you’re getting a home that immediately needs as in not just cosmetic, it needs 300 grand of work put into it to make it livable not even updated and nice but livable.

So, you got to be really careful, this auction thing is very much for investors only, not for regular buyers. All right. Hope that it helps you a lot, gives you perspective, a lot of times this high in the sky, I think you can just go the auction and get a deal. That’s sort of what the websites tell you and its just a myth, it’s not the way it is. Now, do you want to work it like the real job or part time job and show up several times up a week, yeah, you can get somewhere whether if you know what you are doing. But that’s not most of the people in the marketplace obviously.