County Owned Property- How/why?

[Jacob D Adamczak]

I was driving for dollars and saw a house that had the windows boarded up in a neighborhood and thought that would be a great property to add to my list.  However, when I checked the tax records to find the owner, it said the county owned it and purchase price was over 2 million dollars.  The value is only about 150k and the county doesn't own any of the surrounding property or land which leads me to believe its not eminent domain.  Its in a subdivision so it wouldn't be something they would purchase to construct a county building etc.  My question is, why/how does the county own this? Any way for me to try to purchase it? Very confused as to whats going on. 

[Kevin Sobilo]

@Jacob D Adamczak, It does seem odd for the county to own it. Usually at the county level they don't get directly involved in trying to fight blight in neighborhoods.

It could be they ended up with the property as part of a larger purchase of multiple properties from the same seller. So, maybe they didn't intend to buy it but got stuck with it in a way. Often that explains a high purchase price because the price reflects the whole transaction and sometimes ALL of the properties are transferred using one deed. 

[Wayne Brooks]

@Jacob D Adamczak Just look at the deed/transaction where the county ended up with the property.

[Jacob D Adamczak]

@Kevin Sobilo Do you know of any away to try to buy it from them?  Otherwise its just going to sit vacant, boarded up

[Kevin Sobilo]

@Jacob D Adamczak, governments work a little differently in every state. So, I'm not sure who you might contact. If you can't figure out who to contact perhaps contact whoever the local county legislator is. They can probably find out how the property was acquired and if it might be for sale or at least whom to talk to about it.