Court Foreclosure Scenario

May 8th, 2008

The court foreclosure scenario is getting more and more interesting as foreclosure numbers pile up. There are the regulars who show up on the first Tuesday of every month in courts in metro Atlanta.

One of them is Trent Gaines who is a closing attorney by profession but on these days he doubles up as a clever investor who has not come to the court without doing his homework meticulously. He spends his spare time carousing through localities, checking on property titles and then seeing to the court biddings. Gaines advises that the whole exercise of arriving at the court and starting to bid to buy a house is not child’s play. However he adds that with interest rates being the lowest since decades this is a good opportunity to snap up a deal. His words are for those who want to buy in this falling market and not for those who are selling.

Most of those attending the auctions are professionals albeit unofficially. One is a twinkling old lady who looks like a kind grandmother. But she knows all the ropes and accordingly guides her representative to bid for the houses that are worth it. She knows the entire foreclosure auction lingo, which other new comers will not understand.

Experts hide their findings from another like school children during a class test. They whisper with their associates in code language, form groups and huddle in corners while running around from one attorney to another. The goal is the same – trying to find the best foreclosed house.

The court auctions tend to be noisy, loud and full of stress. Some attorneys standing on court steps seem to be shouting to no one in particular. Others read off loudly from brochures while readying themselves to shout each other down when the bidding starts. To a casual visitor the scene does not seem to make sense. Soon one learns to understand that the best units are bid later in the day, marked areas are in the hands of particular law firms and the genuine potential investors hang around looking like idle onlookers.

There is a paranoid hush-hush all around. One will not tell the zip code of the property that interests him; another will keep the property she is bidding on a secret. The highest bidder will have to produce something around $150,000 in ten minutes. In the melee it is difficult to believe that the house being dragged around was somebody’s home with hearth fires burning.