Property auctions are likely to heat up this fall as winter nears and foreclosure moratoriums expire.

Auctions of bank foreclosures can be the best deal for a consumer, says Paul Rogers, an associate with Inland Real Estate Auctions.

A lot of these banks were sitting on these bad deals and hoping these things were going to turn around, and now they realize the problems aren't going to go away, Rogers says. They want to structure these deals so the properties and the problems go away.

Interested buyers are likely to do better at auctions in the next couple of months instead of waiting until the end of the year-especially if they need financing, says Michael Fine, executive vice president of auction firm Sheldon Good & Co.

As the better properties get sold now, the lesser properties will be left, and that will drag down comparisons, Fine says.

Source: Chicago Tribune, Mary Ellen Podmolik (08/30/2009)

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