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County land auction goes global |
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Tuesday, 07 October 2008 |
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By Mike Gervais
Register Staff
9-4-2008 Inyo County is stepping into the 21st Century by utilizing modern technology to auction off tax-defaulted properties.
Inyo County Tax Collector Alisha McMurtrie announced last month that the county will be hosting its first-ever online auction of tax-defaulted properties beginning Saturday, Oct. 25.
Historically, Inyo County has hosted its tax-defaulted property auctions live in the Inyo County Board of Supervisors meeting room in Independence. Those live auctions generally saw between 20 and 35 residents and prospective property owners in attendance.
By going online, McMurtrie said, Inyo County can reach a global market with its property sales.
“We’ve been successful with our live auctions in the past, don’t get me wrong,” McMurtrie said. “With the assistance of the World Wide Web and the auction company Bid 4 Assets, I have chosen to offer our tax-defaulted properties to all prospective bidders and not isolate the process to those who can attend our auctions in person, which was previously required.”
Inyo County is a member of a property tax collectors’ group that includes 10 other counties. About 10 years ago, the other member counties began offering their tax-defaulted property auctions online.
McMurtrie said she kept tabs on those counties, and watched as the online auction systems developed.
Currently, the other 10 members of the tax collectors’ group are conducting all their auctions online. “It just seems to be the right direction to go,” McMurtrie said.
Inyo County has 34 parcels that have been available for viewing since Friday, Sept. 19 at www.bid4assets.com under the Inyo County tax sales link.
Those properties are located in virtually every community of Inyo County. “This year they’re located from the top to the bottom, from side to side, in the county, and that’s not normally the case,” McMurtrie said.
All of the 34 properties that are going up for bid online are vacant, without homes in place.
The tax collector has so many properties available for this year’s defaulted properties auction because it has been more than two years since the last auction.
Already, the properties that are viewable online are receiving attention from Internet users.
“I’ve been checking to see how many hits we get every couple days and right now we’re in the thousands,” McMurtrie said. “I don’t know how many people we’ll have bidding on the property, because this is the first time,” but if the number of page hits the auction site is receiving is any indication, there should be a record turn-out of bidders.
Conducting the property sales online through bid4assets.com is virtually free to the county, as all the advertising costs and the Web site’s dues are included in the minimum bid for each property.
Bidding will be conducted in $100 increments.
Any proceeds from the property sales that go above and beyond the back-taxes that are owed go to the stakeholders in the property, generally a bank or resident, McMurtrie said.
“We take our costs off the top, anything beyond that is called excess proceeds,” she added.
If there are no stakeholders available to receive the excess proceeds from the auction – which is rare – Inyo County can place that money in the General Fund.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 25 November 2008 )
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