I went to a tax foreclosure auction about 8 years ago. A guy 2 parcels over from me became a met head and let it all go. The guy was a total loser, had been a property owner longer than anyone else in the area.
The property was foreclosed on my the county for unpaid property taxes, about $3,500. The county had already evicted him, and cleaned the place up. It would have been a sweet deal.
I went to the auction, registered, and waited for the property to come up.
When the auction started, there weren't any bids. I waited until the auctioneer was about to make the last call and bid. Then someone else bid. And another. And another. I bid again. then the price got to about double the taxes owed.
I was out of cash.
And you had to have cash. That was the rule for the auction. No checks. Winning bidders had to be prepared to pay in cash if they won.
The auction was held in the county auditorium. I sat there watching as people won auctions and then walked up to the gal that was handling the transactions with briefcases. They took the winning bidders off to a room to complete the sale.
All I could think about was how much cash was walking into that auditorium in the briefcases. Most of the auctions closed at under ten grand. I had eight. The property went for $9,500 or so, I can't remember the exact amount.
Anyway, most of the bidders did that sort of thing for a living. Same for the guy who got the meth heads property. He made some good money on that deal. The couple that bought it paid $180,000 for it. Now the county probably made the auction winner pay some of the cleanup costs, but I don't know for sure. The loser that lost the place had several singlewide trailer homes on it, and a bunch of derelict cars and trucks, even a bus. And lots of junk. The cleanup crews were there for a couple weeks with 2 excavators and end dump tractor trailers hauling crap out of there all day long.
A couple months later a for sale sign went up, a nice young couple with 2 kids bought it, moved in a triple wide manufactured home, built a barn and put 2 horses on the place.
The neighborhood is a good place again now that the loser is gone.