Hat tip to shadash for sending this along, from the nctimes.com:
San Diego County court administrators will end the decades-old practice of selling foreclosed houses on the courthouse steps in downtown San Diego on Aug. 31, administrators said Monday.
Trustee sales, in which lenders auction off foreclosed properties, grew in popularity in recent months as investors went looking for cheap houses to fix up and sell or rent. What once attracted a dozen professionals can now bring in 40 or more interested buyers on any given day.
San Diego County joins Riverside, Los Angeles and other California counties in pushing the practice off its courthouse property. Sending the auction to a new, to-be-determined site could cost trustee companies, which sell the houses, thousands of dollars in advertising costs. But the courts have no obligation to host the auctions.
“Out of tradition, these sales have been held on the steps of the courthouse from a time when such sales were conducted by the court,” Michael Roddy, court executive officer, said in a written statement. “That is no longer the case; these are commercial activities being conducted on public property. These sales not only lack proper permits for conducting business in such a manner but they impact court business.”
Most of the sales at the downtown courthouse steps are run by Fidelity ASAP. The company did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Trustee Assistance Corp., based in Santa Ana, conducts most of its San Diego County auctions at a city-owned building on Nevada Street in Oceanside. The move by the San Diego courts won’t affect their workings much, said Renee Patrick, but she expects to fight the ban along with other companies.
When location of a trustee sale changes, state law requires trustees to send new notices to borrowers and re-advertise properties that would be sold at the new site, a practice that costs from $600 to $700 per property, she said.
“If we had to re-advertise on all these files, that’s an enormous amount of money,” Patrick said.
I actually agree with the Court for kicking them off the property. Always thought it odd that the sales were allowed there. I think it gave a false sense of ‘authority’ and legitimacy to the sales as if they were county sanctioned.
I would have expected liability for potential injury is the main concern of someone at the Court finally woke up and gave them the boot (albeit like a typical gov employee about 3 yrs behind the curve).
As I mentioned on Piggington, if it costs $600-700 a property, it might be easier to pull permits to continue to hold them on the steps. Seems like it would be a win-win. City could use the money. I hear them complaining all the time about not having any.
But why not go whole hog and do them on the web only. I suspect Ebay would be glad to host them, (for a slight fee of course). The software obviously exists, the question is what laws would have to change.
On-line?
Let’s hope they get greedy and go entirely on-line. It would change everything.
If they gave 24-hour notice on the opening bids, and winners wired in their funds same-day – it would add two or three times the number of bidders.
It would be a track meet.
Every 24 hours there would be a new set of properties to consider, and the intense competition would drive sales further.
I’d be running a consulting business.
Grandfather the existing trustee sales to the courthouse steps, and move all new trustee sales to the more convenient venue, preferably within the same area so that anyone who finds themselves in the wrong location for an auction can quickly head to the correct location.
Once all the old auctions have been processed, the transition period is complete.
I’d say move the bottom feeders to Father Joe Land by the train tracks.
BS: They complain about $600/house, yet wait 2 years to foreclose and get their cash…the PV of their delays are 10x their little gripe fest. They could have had 90% of all foreclosures done by now!
boo hoo, these are the same scum that continue the scams by reporting inflated purchase prices to the county recorder, so they appear to make less money on the flips, so they don’t run afoul of govt programs/taxes whatever. I am betting damn few “little guys” get a house on the court house steps as there is still money in it for ‘investors.’ Online auctions, yeah imagine all the sniping that would happen there, what could possibly go wrong. Paraphrasing the words of the Joker, “This whole system needs an enema.”
Parking at the courthouse has always been a pain. I wonder if the County Admin Building is considered as a replacement? Nice large lawn and the participants can take in the glory of San Diego Bay while properties are being foreclosed. Petco Park is another choice with large parking lots nearby, but not when there is an afternoon game. Start the sales at 9am.