Part of my family have a very deep roots in Norfolk near OV.

If you close on the property and then discover the roof is leaking, the main sewer line is nothing but tree roots, really any major expense, that can easily put a borrower in a position where they do not have enough actual cash to solve the problem, so the property loses value due to deferred maintenance, or the borrower digs themselves into more debt, making it even harder to get another loan to cash me out of the equation at that  upper 20% of equity. 

Though painfully expensive, I want to put my roots down around here, be near my family, and feed my hopeless addiction to surfing; an addiction I wish I didn't have from a real estate perspective but one that's nonetheless here to stay and, unfortunately, a MAJOR factor in where I choose to live. :)My brother has been talking about buying his first house in Santa Cruz, CA, where he currently rents, for quite some time.

I own a North Carolina single family home with a full basement and one of the basement rooms (root cellar?) 

The company I worked for insured one of the mortgages.The victim of the forgery filed suit to set the deed aside and as I recall, the trial court found, in a decision based on first impressions, the Registrar's acceptance of the deed rendered it valid as a new root of title and the victim's only recourse was against the state's land fund. 

NAR has solid roots.   

Ultimately, I think you have to decide how rooted you are in a community and if you are in this for the long game.

Also rooting for the $800 holdouts, but anticipate their probability of success to drop drastically soon.Any other econ fans observing this auction with interest? 

See if you can find a root cause and then fix the problem.Maybe they are advertising on more places?

You got this and we are all rooting for you!