Buying at courthouse steps-Gwinnett County

[Cal C.]

I'm looking for some advice on buying a property at the courthouse steps in Lawrenceville on Tuesday.  I'm also looking for some insight on how properties go on and off the auction list.   I also understand that I'm not likely going to be able to buy at a price I'm comfortable paying. 

Anyway here is the story;

I glanced at Auction.com a couple of days ago and much to my surprise my first flip was listed.  The house is probably worth at least $20K more than when I flipped it three years ago.  So it is unlikely they are underwater, unless they refinanced or got a 2d mortgage of some type. 

Additionally, it looks like someone or some entity paid the property tax which were due in Oct. Also, I believe the property went up for auction back in Jun. I'm not sure what happened and why it has taken five months for it to come back to the courthouse steps. The initial opening price which is obviously very low to draw in buyers is about half of the ARV.

The house was in very good condition when I sold it three years ago.  Fannie Mae had repainted and recarpeted in their standard beige paint and carpet.   I did add tile to one of the bathrooms and upgraded the kitchen appliances (those may be gone?).  I also painted an accent wall where the fireplace is.  

The house as I remember is larger than most houses in the neighborhood but it is a little weird in its design.  Thus probably negating the extra sq ft in terms of resale value.  

I plan to stop by the house tomorrow and check to see if anyone is still living there. Ask the neighbors what they know and go by the courthouse and see if there are any other liens recorded against the property. I will also have someone check the MLS to see if the property was listed for sale or for rent since 2011.

If I can pick up this house for less than 130% of the initial bid estimate, then I should be doing quite well with it.  I'm only bringing a cashier's check for that amount so, that will limit my ability to buy at too high of a price or get caught up in the auction.

 Any other steps I should be taking?

Thanks!

[Richard Balsam]

If you want accurate pre foreclosure date- you can manually read Gwinnett Daily Post for the foreclosure advertising ( I forgot the day they publish it - you have to call them). I stopped  doing that as my eyes were about to pop out of my head, reading page after page of small print- just to find the street address.

 A MUCH better approach: buy the download spreadsheet at EquityDepot.com. They compile everything and match the street address with the tax records - so you know the debtor name, amount owed, tax appraised value, etc. Almost too much data on each house. Time is money - it costs $79 for the month for the downloadable spreadsheet, and $49 to keep the data on their server and you look at the data there. Takes me one hour to message the data into a useable Excel file, and come up with my "drive list". This way, I'm looking at exactly what I want, rather than spending days reading, and compiling a free list, to not know which house has any possible equity in it. 

The "bad" news:  I stopped buying at the auction after seeing exactly what @Cal C. said. Too many venture capital firms, hedge funds, and naive large investors bidding up to the "stupid level" buying homes "sight unseen" - never having been inside any house, and paying up to 90%+ of ARV. Wouldn't it be easier for these companies to place a 90% offer on every house in MLS? At least they can see the house inside, negotiate the seller to fix most items, and know what they are buying? They'll still be paying too much as an "investor", but at least it would reduce some of their repair expenses! My take on them...they don't care. It's not their money, and they assume all real estate will appreciate over time. They'll just sell the home next decade or two, and investors with the money they're investing in today won't know that they grossly overpaid back in 2017. For me...it's not a long term strategy to overpay, just to cash flow today. I bet the private investors that lent them all the money would not buy the same house they did, at the levels they bid for the house, sight unseen.