Upcoming foreclosure auctions.

Here is a summary of upcoming foreclosure auctions coming to the Southern California area:

Zetabid: Saturday February 28th & Sunday March 1st. New auction company backed by the Los Angeles Times, GoDove and Catalist Homes. They will soon have their first Southern California auction after being quite slow getting out of the gate. I think the servicers were letting them cut their teeth in the markets with massive oversupply like Florida and Arizona to see if they should give them a shot locally.

REDC: Southern California 7 day foreclosure auction starting January 17th and running through January 28th. Site claims 1500 homes to be auctioned but many are still on the market so if they get an offer they get pulled from the auction.

Hudson & Marshall: A smaller foreclosure auction from February 25th through March 1st with homes scattered all over Southern California. They may be still adding inventory so check back as we get into February.

Kennedy Wilson: They claim 20 homes will be auctioned on February 14th & 15th but no additional information is available yet. They also appear to be handling the Los Angeles County tax auctions.

From what I have seen of the inventory the quality is very bad. In general the sales are good enough in most places in So. Cal. to absorb inventory coming on the market. So anything making it past the MLS listing to these foreclosures auctions are of even lesser quality than those seen on the MLS. Starting bids are lower now but since these auctions are still reserve auction that doesn't have a whole lot of meaning. If absolute auctions (no reserve) ever start up locally that would be an amazing thing.

REDC auction. Starting bids lowered.

The latest REDC auction is set for August for Southern California, there is a significant decrease in the starting bid prices. The median start bid for combined Los Angeles and Ventura auction was $159,000 for the last auction. The current auction median starting bid is $119,000.

It will be interesting to see if these lowered starting bids get more closed sales by the lenders. Many auction bids are not accepted since the reserve prices aren't met and the lender attempts to sell the home again through other means.

The Los Angeles County auction is set for August 23, 2008 at the LA Convention Center.

The Ventura County auction is set for August 26, 2008 at the Oxnard Performing Arts Center.

Upcoming foreclosure auctions.

The foreclosure auctions you see advertised on television are vastly different than the foreclosure auction held on the county courthouse steps. These advertised auctions are just marketing gimmicks to try to generate time urgency and try to get bidders to bid close to market value for a home. These auctions are not absolute auctions, the lender defines a reserve and depending on various factors the auctioneer can either bid up to the reserve with no other bidders (though it seems like there are bidders the way they conduct the auction) or just let the auction flow and see what bids they get. After the final bids are in the lenders will then decide whether or not they want to accept the bids they received or counter offer to the highest bidder. It is basically a starting point for negotiations unless the bidding gets in the ballpark of market value.

Here are the coming auctions for Ventura and Los Angeles county:

• Hudson & Marshall Southern California Auction, you can also bid before the auction if you find a property you like and depending on the bid the property can be sold before the auction is held. This auction will be held from June 7th, 2008 to June 14th, 2008
• Real Estate Disposition Corporation Southern California Auction, REDC advertises a lot on television and the auctions are generally well attended. The Los Angeles area auction will be held June 14th. Ventura County auction will be held June 25th.
• National Home Auction will have a Los Angeles area auction on July 27th, there are is a smattering of Ventura area homes in there as well.

There are smaller auctioneers, like Kennedy-Wilson and Catalist Homes doing small auctions but nothing of note in the local area. You may want to keep an eye on them in the future.