[quote=UCGal]Do you think the increase in 3rd party sales this years (vs banks) is because the banks started lowering the opening bid to a price that makes the property potentially profitable?

I remember reading (here and elsewhere) that last year the banks were setting the opening bids higher than the value of the house – so there were no bids.[/quote]

I dont believe bids have changed much I think what you see as far as third party participation is a reflection of the strength of the market on the low end and the limited inventory. Once prices firmed up a bit it is much easier for people to zero in on values and therefore make bids. I think in some areas the investors are overdoing it (OC) but I really dont know the area well so I could be very wrong.

With good enough data (knowing the servicer and who owns the loan) you can basically ballpark the opening bid pretty well. Some servicer+investor combos set opening bid at what is owed (not too common), others set it at market value (pretty common) and others still set it at market value minus some fixed percentage.

The investor activity is mainly concentrated in the last category with the second category getting action when there is a bad BPO and price comes in low.