By now, there were about 40 people in attendance and everyone was talking. Setting a maximum bid price ensures that you will secure a property that will provide you with an adequate return for the risk you are taking. Sheriff's sales are usually the last step in the house foreclosure process. This leaves you with little time to perform a due diligence on the property and get your finances in order. An example is PropIQ (www.propiq.co.za). Often, the agents know the complex well, or can put me in touch with a member of the body corporate who can assist. Steps away from the golf course at Muirfield Village. Each property is listed in a Legal B Gazette, which is published every Friday. Although it may be tempting, or necessary, to bid above your maximum price to secure a property, you should be careful not to become carried away. I reasoned that a canny criminal might mug me, so I left it in the car. * Where the property is located. 1. I resolved to make one last bid for R895 000. It was a three-bedroom, two-bathroom property on a half-acre in Hillcrest in KwaZulu-Natal. SheriffHQ™ Auction Listings Hundreds of bargain properties listed weekly. The rental yield is not relevant. Why it’s important to find out whether a property is occupied. Your next step is to secure your property. Banks and lenders need to therefore sell them through other means. A Sheriff's auction is conducted by a Sheriff's officer, not a real estate agent or auctioneer. At a minimum, the notices include a description of the property and its street address, any improvements to the property, the name of the plaintiff (usually the foreclosing bank), the name of the defendant, the case number, the date and time of the auction, the address where the auction will be held, the name and address of the plaintiff’s attorneys, and the address of the sheriff. Sheriff's sale date: March 19, 2021. It was as if the auctioneer wasn’t there. Some even offer to perform a due diligence on the property prior to bidding. Bidding starts at $28,000. Things are a little more difficult if the property is situated in a complex. SA Sheriff Auction Listings. If you’re considering buying properties in another town or province, it may prove difficult to find someone who can attend auctions on your behalf regularly. No matter how financially attractive a property may be, if it is occupied by the owner and you don’t know the owner’s circumstances – for example, whether he or she has a place to stay and will move out once the property has been sold at auction – it could be a long time before you take possession of your property. * The age and attractiveness of the complex. An auction is designed for a lender to quickly get its money back from the loan. Select a county below and start searching. I was facing off against a relatively well-dressed man in his 30s who I guessed was a representative of the foreclosing bank. Then contact the owner to see if they are open to making a deal. Unl… We visited every property listed in the areas in which we were interested, and, after about six months, my girlfriend and I found a house that we felt suited us. How to find properties that are coming up for auction. Gauteng. We had some savings, but didn’t qualify for a mortgage bond much over R1 million. Sheriff's auctions of real estate differ from usual auctions conducted by real estate agents/licensed auctioneers. The agreement will stipulate which methods of payment are acceptable (for example, bank-guaranteed cheque or electronic funds transfer). Many properties across the United States are bought at Sheriff auctions for considerably less than their market value – sometimes 30-50 percent! Sheriff Halfway House Movables Auction 19/10/2020 (#40) 19/10/2020 11:00 PM SAST CLOSED View all lots. I also ask the tenant for the letting agent’s contact details, so I can verify what the tenant has told me about the terms of the lease. Eastern Cape. Save your home from mortgage and tax foreclosure Resources to avoid losing your home through foreclosure in Philadelphia. Whoever won the bid would leave without honouring it, forcing the property to be re-auctioned, by which time, they hoped I would have long since left. Property and Houses for sale in Standard Bank Sheriff Auctions. This requires some real detective work. What follows is the method I use to buy properties at sheriffs’ auctions. All rights reserved, Please visit the official Government information portal for Coronavirus by clicking HERE. Real Auction's terms must be met to be eligible to participate in the Sheriff's Sale. The bidding started at R1 000 and quickly esca-lated to R10 000 before someone piped up with a bid of R500 000. The auctioneer read out the details of the first property. The property is offered for sale shall be subject to all liens, mortgages, easements, and encumbrances, which were or became effective on the record prior to the levy of the execution under which the sale is being held. For example, if the estimated annual rent is R60 000, the initial maximum bid price will be R400 000. The auctions are well attended, and, to ensure a steady flow of mandates, auction houses know that the properties have to fetch reasonable prices. A man arrived with a box of samoosas, announced that he was the auctioneer and said the auction would begin in a few minutes. If the property is in a complex, I ask my friend to drop by on a Saturday morning and ask the security guards whether the unit is occupied. How to avoid properties that need costly repairs and maintenance. The first is to complete and sign the purchase agreement, called the “conditions of sale in execution of immovable property”. In most cases, if the defendant is a company or close corporation, the property will be tenanted. You may find that another method works better. In 2006, my girlfriend and I decided to buy a house. It is important that you know what these amounts are before you bid and factor them into your maximum bid price, because they can be substantial. It's called a Sheriff auction because in some states, the Sheriff manages, conducts and holds these foreclosure sales. This can be a substantial sum – if you secure a property for R1 million, the fee will be R114 000 (including VAT). He would pick it up for R200 000 less and split the difference with me. * Contact the local sheriff. At R600 000, only three of us were bidding; at R660 000, two. Most tenants are relieved that the prospective owner wants them to stay on, but some try to improve their lot by saying they are paying a lower rent than they actually are. If it is occupied, the caretaker may be able to tell you by whom and may be prepared to provide you with their contact details. * The amenities in the complex – for example, a swimming pool, tennis court or gym. How can I learn about more auctions? You will have to visit the municipality and settle the outstanding rates and other charges of the previous owner. By participating in the auction over the phone, you can decide whether to bid above the ceiling. The Court House is located at 1000 Main St., Cincinnati, OH 45202. This meant that each auction took longer to complete than would typically be the case. You may have to have the water and electricity supply restored. Property Address 8736 Dunsinane Drive Dublin Delaware County OH, 43017 Auction Location Online Description Bidding starts at $360,000. FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Corne Oosthuisen or Sonja Mew Tel : 087 330 1074 or 083 726 9672 E-mail address : corne@shha.co.za or sonja@shha.co.za If the property is in the Eastern Cape or the Western Cape, I ask a family member or friend to bid on my behalf. The Legal B Gazettes are available free online at www.gpwonline.co.za. If it is a free-standing home, it’s as simple as driving past in the evening and checking whether the lights are on. Instead, the prices of units sold recently in the development are a key indicator of the price the unit is likely to fetch. Then, after gazing around the room with what I hoped would come across as a look of desperation, I raised my hand and bid R670 000. The “pre-auction” I had witnessed were buying consortiums trying to allocate the properties among themselves so that competing bids would not drive up the prices. The jester held a discussion in heated whispers with three or four members of the audience before bidding R671 000. I lied about the cheque, because I did not want to draw attention to the fact that I was carrying R100 000 in cash. Some sheriffs will simply email you a list of the properties on auction, whereas others have their own websites that provide additional information about the properties – though, generally not more than is in the Legal B Gazettes. The second major risk that I want to mitigate is being saddled with having to carry out expensive maintenance and renovations. By law, all sheriffs’ auctions must be gazetted. The properties were expensive. In order to bid on my behalf, the agent requires a power of attorney (you can find a template online), which includes my full name, identity number and residential address and confirms that the agent has my authority to bid on my behalf at auction on the particular unit up to a specified amount. The weekly Sheriff’s sale is conducted every Thursday at 11:00 a.m. outside of Room 260 at the Hamilton County Court House. A number of websites provide property valuation reports based on deeds office records. What surprised me was the number of properties auctioned each month. If you’re interested in properties in a specific area, you can ask the sheriff for that area to put you on his or her mailing list. The Sheriff’s Office sends out updates on cancellations and bid amounts when available. To avoid this problem, I do not bid on owner-occupied properties. I then test the revised maximum bid price against: * The market value of the property as determined by an online valuation tool. How to establish what a property is worth. Once you know that a property is occupied, you need to find out whether the occupier is the owner or a tenant. Instead of waiting for a property to hit a sheriff's sale, you can take a few steps to purchase the home before it even ends up in foreclosure. The final maximum bid price is generally a result of the revised bid price and subjective judgment based on the above factors. That means it's critical that you view and inspect the property before making an offer. Foreclosure.com offers the most up-to-date and accurate searchable database of REO homes in America. Many of these sites are not subscription-based, so you can draw a report for a relatively small fee. The house on which I was bidding was fourth on a list of 10 properties. I bid aggressively in increments of R5 000. Wading through the Government Gazettes can be time-consuming. Is it conveniently located close to transport links, shopping centres, schools and hospitals? The sense I got from attending these auctions was that bargains are rare. If you want to flip the property for a profit, you need to consider your desired profit after settling all costs. * The trustees of the body corporate, who are often keen to ensure that the property will reach the highest possible price at auction, so that the body corporate can recover any outstanding levies. The property is then auctioned off at a sale to the highest bidder at a publicly announced date, time and place required by state statutes. He explained that he knew the auctioneer, and, if I failed to return, the property would be re-auctioned. These companies charge a percentage of the cost of the property if it is secured at auction – typically in the region of 10 percent. * This article is an extract from Greg Tarrant’s guide, Sheriff Auctions: How to Purchase Property at Sheriff Auction & Tax Tips and Tricks for Residential Property Owners, which is available from amazon.com in Kindle format for US$4.55. This time, quite quickly, he called out: “Going once, going twice, sold!”. I find that a combination of approaches usually works. Sometimes the guards will allow you to enter the grounds. 2. Stop the auction!” The auctioneer glanced around uneasily, but made no attempt to address the disruption. If the property is tenanted, she also earns a once-off fee of 10 percent of the annual rent if she secures a new lease with the existing tenant. An overgrown garden or a green pool is usually a good sign that the house is unoccupied. * Sheriffs’ listings. We are your ultimate source for bargain properties. Over and above the transfer duty, you have to pay buyer’s commission, which can be as much as 10 percent (excluding VAT) of the winning bid. But, the competition may be strong to close these deals because the prices can start very low. Finding out whether a property is occupied, and if it is, by whom, is the most important and difficult part of researching a property. There are two types of property offered for sale: • Those for non-payment of the property taxes (auditor’s book/page/parcel) • Those for mortgage foreclosure. © 2020 Independent Online and affiliated companies. On more than one occasion, the estate agent has put me in contact with the tenant or owner. Very often, the agent will be able to provide you with the name and contact details of the managing agent, as well as other information about the property. Here are 5 tips for buying property at an auction. My goal is to acquire buy-to-let investments, so I focus only on properties that will be cash-flow positive from day one and that have low outstanding levies and rates, because the buyer has to settle these in cash (they cannot be financed). In my experience, I acquire one in every five properties on which I bid. Description of the Tax Sale Escrow Program, which lets people request that a tax-delinquent property be sold at a sheriff sale. In early 2008, my mounting frustration at not being able to buy drove me to look at the distressed property market. SA Sheriff's goal is to provide you with the ultimate online solution of acquiring valuable information regarding dates on sales in execution. They may ask you to send them a copy of the signed purchase agreement. If the hammer falls on your bid, you need to attend to a number of things before you can celebrate your purchase. Foreclosure.com offers everything you need to know. Tax sales are the first Thursday of every month at 10:00 AM. – Bank finance and occupational interest: A bank guarantee (if a bank will finance the purchase) needs to be provided to the sheriff within 21 days of the auction. (The yield is the gross annual rental income on a fully let property expressed as a percentage of the purchase price of the property.). * A description of the property (the physical address, the erf number, the size of the property, and so on). We make searching easier. Often, the sheriff will notify you of the properties to be auctioned just a few days before the day on which the auction is held. The bidding continued until I no longer had to feign discomfort. I would have to put down a deposit of 10 percent and pay the sheriff’s commission. His eyes swept the room before he said: “Going once … going twice …” My heart leapt and I felt giddy as I realised that I was about to buy the property for R670 000. The room fell silent and all eyes turned to the auctioneer. Then “the jester” strode forward and shouted: “Stop the auction! View photos and floor plans of 9 properties for sale including Houses, complexes, farms, vacant land and simplexes. But shortly after we moved in, a suspicion that I had witnessed some devious goings-on at the auction were confirmed. In highly sought-after areas, where there is significantly less risk (that is, high-value suburbs and new developments where the unit is unoccupied), you need to use a lower yield to calculate the maximum bid price. A property can not be inspected prior to auction as the Sheriff does not obtain possession of a property as part of the sale process. Another tip is to ask the person bidding on your behalf to phone you when the bidding is about to start. 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