You are right about the courthouse auctions, it is almost always the bank who buys it. Today’s So Cal trustee sale is mostly just a routine requirement of the foreclosure process and not an auction to find a deal at. If the house was worth more or the same as the debt the owner would have sold it prior to foreclosure but that is not the case with most of them. After the bank gets it back, then they have to try and sell it, then market forces kick in and they have to lower the price as time goes on until they sell it, lowballing REO’s with many days on the market is where I see the real potential bargains.
