Another foreclosure/auction question

[Bruce Scannell]

BP, I know there's been a bunch of posts on foreclosures and auctions, but the topic really interests me and scares me at the same time. I understand that it's critical to do your due diligence before bidding, but I was wondering if I could get some more people's success/failure stories to see how the process works or has worked, more specifically. For instance I was close to bidding on a couple properties. On one of them my realtor had visited the property and said it looked decent without any huge visible issues. I did a deed search on the county website, showing all the mortgage transactions and finally the sheriff sale. I also checked the county tax site for delinquent taxes. My one hesitation was that the bank had assumed the mortgage(s) at foreclosure for 230k, but the auction started at only 20k, and finished at 60k, with reserve not met. Sorry for the short story but here's the punch line...Why would the bank bid so high then open so low? Does anyone understand what the bank is trying to do? Thanks, Bruce