Questions about foreclosure auctions. King County, WA.

[John Koopman]

Hello!

I'm looking to go to my first foreclosure auction soon in King County, WA. I have a few questions on the process of the whole thing. Here is an real life example for an upcoming auction: 

There's a house in my area that is going for auction this month. This house from the outside I can tell has been well maintained and you can even tell they've added on to it. In my market, it's easily worth at least $350K. Opening bid is $260,000. But I can see the mortgage owed is for $276,827, so I'm assuming the lender, Wells Fargo, won't take anything less than that. Also, this house and same owner, has had 3 notices of trustee sales in the last 5 years, but within a year there's been "release of lis pendens/notice", which I'm assuming means they paid their default amount to Wells Fargo. I also noticed in the last notice of trustee sale, the trustee name changed from Northwest Trustee Services LLC to Aztec Foreclosure Corp of Washington.

Pretending I'm ready to buy this place, my questions are:

Is it possible for me to contact the lender several days before the auction and try to buy it now?

If I did end up going to the auction, willing to pay up to $300K, do I just get a cashiers check in that amount, paid to "Aztec Foreclosure Corp of Washington" or who do I make it out to? What happens if I win the bid at $295K but only have the check for 300K?

What's the process after, if I am the highest bid? When is my name officially on title?

These are all probably real beginner questions, I apologize for that, but your help is greatly appreciated!

[BJ Ralphs]

Originally posted by @Dennis Dahlberg:

Lately the homes on the court room steps are going close to retail and sometimes more.  There are a lot of eyes looking at the same property.

You will make the check out the the beneficial or the Trustee, the company doing the auction will tell you,  and usually you have till 5 PM the next day to come up with the funds.

Most auctions will require you to put down a cashier check around $10,000 when you win the bid and pay the balance within 24 hours. I use to keep cashier checks made out to cash, and then endorse them when I won the bid.

The trustee will issue a "Trustee Deed"  to you when you win the bid.

If these properties are selling for close to retail as you say how do investors make any money on these deals? The numbers don't add up as far as I can tell on a LOT of these auction homes.