1st Time at City Hall Foreclosure Sale

[Elizabeth Pyle]

I'm the owner of 25 residential doors in Chicago. I offered on a 6 unit building that went into foreclosure while the property was listed for sale. I contacted the bank that took the property back and I coincidentally have a loan with them. Even with the current banking relationship, they were required to do the foreclosure sale. I found the sale on the Cook County website. Here is what I learned from going to the sale:

1. You have to bring 10% of the auction sale price in cash/wire/certified funds the day of the sale.

2. Within 24 hours of the auction sale, you have to pay the remaining 90% in cash/wire/certified funds. ie no time for loans or due diligence

3. The auction was held in a hallway (not a courtroom) in the basement of City Hall. It was very difficult to find and no one working there could give accurate directions. The actual auction took about 30 seconds so if you were late, searching for the location, you would have missed your opportunity to bid.

4. It was not well attended. Only me and one other person who was not a buyer but trying to learn about foreclosures. The bidding started at $1 above the reserve price that the bank had set.

[Mike Kirby]

Quote from @Jay Hinrichs:

Quote from @Mike Kirby:

Quote from @Elizabeth Pyle:

I'm the owner of 25 residential doors in Chicago. I offered on a 6 unit building that went into foreclosure while the property was listed for sale. I contacted the bank that took the property back and I coincidentally have a loan with them. Even with the current banking relationship, they were required to do the foreclosure sale. I found the sale on the Cook County website. Here is what I learned from going to the sale:

1. You have to bring 10% of the auction sale price in cash/wire/certified funds the day of the sale.

2. Within 24 hours of the auction sale, you have to pay the remaining 90% in cash/wire/certified funds. ie no time for loans or due diligence

3. The auction was held in a hallway (not a courtroom) in the basement of City Hall. It was very difficult to find and no one working there could give accurate directions. The actual auction took about 30 seconds so if you were late, searching for the location, you would have missed your opportunity to bid.

4. It was not well attended. Only me and one other person who was not a buyer but trying to learn about foreclosures. The bidding started at $1 above the reserve price that the bank had set.

So did you buy it? What is it worth and what did you pay? 
At my first auction at the court house steps in 2016 there were only two bidders. Myself and another guy. After each of us had bid once, the auctioneer said you do have your cashiers checks with you right? I only had my business account checkbook🙃 Lesson learned the hard way!

having bought court house steps for years I have encountered all these type of scenarios. The one were you dont bring certified funds does really blow up the competing bidder.. I won a small development deal in Oregon because of that exact same thing.  the other bidder was Hey wait i will run to the bank.. NOPE.

some lawyers when there is some gamesmanship going on might call out an obscure location to cry the sale.. i won one that way as well.  when U do it for a living you always know to call the trustee or sherrif or whoever is crying the sale a few days before exact location and rules of the sale. 

Out here in CA OR WA NV its FULL cashiers check at the sale. bidders would get twisted up with this when the bid went up and they did no realize if they gave say 500k in cashiers checks but won it for 475k you WILL get the 25k back :)

The guy I was bidding against told the auctioneer, let’s start over, so he won at the first bid. The other bidder was really cool to me. My wife and I went to the house that he won with him. He paid $135,000, it was worth $280,000. The entire house was furnished, there were jars of change on the kitchen counter. The closets were full of men and women’s clothes, and there was a perfectly functioning pool in the backyard. 

I’ve had my cashiers checks at every auction since then!