New to Sheriff Sales - a few questions

[Mark Beekman]

I attended a Sheriff Sale in Montgomery County, PA the other day just to observe. Things were slightly different than the neighboring Chester County, PA Sheriff Sale. I ran across a few things that didn't make sense to me, so I thought I'd run it by the BP crowd:

1. Each property listed had a "debt" amount, a "cost" amount, and an "upset price". I assume that the "debt" is what's owed on the foreclosing lien, the "cost" is the amount of attorney fees, filing fees, etc, and the "upset price" is basically the starting price for bids. Is this correct?

2. There were instances where the upset prices were well above the debt amount, but others were well below. This threw me off. I was doing my research on prospective properties based solely on the debt amounts that were within my budget. Had I known that the upset prices could be significantly lower than the debt, I would've researched way more properties. Is there a reason for the difference?

3. The vast majority of the properties were bought back by the attorneys for "cost", being that that's what the opening and only bids were. It was tough to hear and keep track so I may be mistaken, but there were a few instances of people bidding against the attorneys for over "cost", but under the upset price. Going back to question #1, I thought the upset price was the starting point for bidders. How/why would someone bid under the upset price?