Life After Forclosure Auction

[Paul Jones]

I am new to real estate and have been following the forclosure auction online for Dade county. First I wanted to confirm some terminology... is the plaintiff the bank that owns the property?

Also I noticed that the plaintiff maximum bid is often hidden, why do they do that? Lastly, the majority of the properties are ultimately bought by the plaintiffs. What happens after that? Does the bank maintain control of the properties? Is that a good time contact the banks to purchase the property? Should I consider the bidding activity in my offer to the bank in an unsuccessful auction?

Please advise, looking for some help from an expert...

[Wayne Brooks]

Yes, the bank is the plaintiff. The bank will set their maximum bid at either 1) the FJ amount, if they haven't determined the property value, or 2) some number close to FMV that they'd be willing to let it go for now, as opposed to taking it back and selling as a REO. The reason some banks "disclose" their maximum bids is to discourage bidders running the bids up, if they're not going to reach the bank's "disclosed" maximum bid, because if they take the property back with the "high bid" they have to pay auction fees/doc stamps of 2.2% on the final bid price. This is why many properties "sell" for $100, as the property is worth $100k, and the bank "discloses" their max bid as $220k, therefore no one ups the bank's $100 opening bid.