I'm not sure what you mean by auditor exactly, whether you are talking appraisal or assessment.

The County has it assessed around 49K, I know that you can take that with a grain of salt.

In fact Georgia passed a law last year stipulating that sales price establishes FMV on the tax assessment for the following year.

I understand assessed value does not equal market value.

They do pay when its empty, when the inevitable special assessment shows up from the HOA, or when some major work is needed.Or, they can pay all at once, sell for whatever they can get and bring cash to the table.Or, they can give up these properties.

The county assessment is around 255k currently.

The dreaded special assessment is one.  

Being rich is more of an assessment of where someone is at today.

The biggest mistake I see made is focusing on PRICE.Price is important but it what you get for the price in what area that is KEY.What I have heard from Detroit is they have very high property taxes there.I have heard in the thousands and thousands for one of those cheap 10k houses.You find this as well in Atlanta with very high taxes and assessments and appeal backlogs that go for miles.I would save your money and leverage yourself into larger deals in better areas.For instance if you have 50k to play with buy a 10 unit in a better area.In my area in war zone Atlanta you can find 10k houses listed by the hundreds for sale in crap areas.What smart investors do is look at outlining areas instead where you might see 5 properties for great buys that you have to act fast.When the market comes back the nicer areas will recover first usually.If you have an old junky house on land you have a development play.In Atlanta these junk houses might sit on small parcel .18 to 1/4 acre and the topo is hilly.I can land a house for decent rent and get 1 acre or more in the burbs.More exit strategies,less crime,less taxes,etc.I might offer really cheap for one of those war zone properties and then try to wholesale it with a full disclaimer and let someone else take the risk.

Would it be wise to make my offer Based on this...........Calculating dollar per sq ft higher than what county assessed value is?