Montgomery County debuts first online Sheriff’s Sale in Pa.

NORRISTOWN » The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office recently conducted the first-ever online sheriff’s sale in Pennsylvania and by all accounts it was a success.

As Sheriff Sean Kilkenny anticipated, the online sale attracted a wider pool of real estate investors interested in purchasing and renovating foreclosed properties throughout Montgomery County.

Ultimately, the overall participation rate was 10 times that of our conventional sheriff’s sales and the sales rate quadrupled, according to online auction site Bid4Assets which runs the sales for the county.

“We have been honored to work with Montgomery County to pioneer Pennsylvania’s first online sheriff’s sale,” said Bid4Assets CEO Jesse Loomis.

“Together we kept bidders and attorneys safely at home, while dramatically increasing the number of participants and third-party sales, all at no cost to the county,” Loomis said.

According to Real Estate Manager Jane Castora there were 115 registered bidders, mostly from Pennsylvania and a few from New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, but some from as far away as New Mexico, California and Washington state.

Back in August, when the October sale list was first compiled, there were 275 properties available for the auction.

That list shrunk to 173 by Oct. 15 and continued to get smaller up to the day of the auction on Oct. 28.

On auction day, 39 properties were ready to sell when the auction began at 1 p.m. Two of those were postponed during the auction and 16 sold to third party bidders.

“In all, 12 people were winning bidders, three of them won multiple properties. Six of those bidders were new to our sale and six were previous sale participants,” Castora said. “So far the feedback we received has been positive. I’m looking forward to more in the coming week.”

According to Loomis, there was a total of 781 bids placed on 19 properties, notwithstanding the three that were pulled after bids were placed.

“Attorneys, bidders and the sheriff’s staff managed the process and bid safely from home without having to worry about social distancing,” he said. “The online nature of the auction expanded the bidder pool and several properties sold for over $50,000 more than the debt amount, which the parties who lost their property will have a claim to. We’re already working on marketing Montgomery County’s December sheriff’s sale.”

“Attorneys, bidders and the sheriff’s staff managed the process and bid safely from home without having to worry about social distancing.”

— Bid4Assets CEO Jesse Loomis