More than 700 properties are due to be sold to the highest bidder at an online auction early next year due to their owners’ failure to pay millions of dollars in taxes to San Diego County.
It is the county’s biggest sale of so-called tax-defaulted properties in seven years.
The Board of Supervisors earlier this month approved the public offering of land, homes and other assets whose owners are at least five years behind in paying their taxes. Some of the properties up for bid include assets that have been declared public nuisances.
“Prior to the auction, the Treasurer-Tax Collector’s Office thoroughly researches tax-defaulted property to identify parties of interest,” Treasurer-Tax Collector Dan McAllister told the board in advance of the vote.
If the past is prologue, there could be deals to be had.
Earlier this year, a one-bedroom condominium in Pacific Beach listed with a minimum bid of $165,000 sold for $480,100. Other properties that were auctioned off in the spring sale included timeshares that are offered for as little as $100.
In all, 749 properties will be auctioned in the upcoming sale, a five-day event that begins March 14 and concludes March 19. A list of properties and their characteristics is available here.
Bidders are required to register in advance of submitting purchase offers. Interested bidders can sign up to be notified of registration opening here.
The scheduled auction is one of a handful of sales McAllister holds each year to recover property taxes that owners have fallen behind in paying.
The sales are not a surprise to the people, trusts and limited liability companies that are the registered property owners. All of the owners have been alerted to the pending sale multiple times and in multiple ways and given the chance to object.
The number of properties to be sold is the highest since 2018, county records show.
Not all of the parcels are likely to be sold, however. Most of the past auctions have seen some owners make good on their tax obligations in advance of the sale; others have remained unsold because they received no bidders and are not sold.
“Parcels not sold at the online public auction may be re-offered within a 90-day period,” McAllister wrote.
The last public auction of tax-defaulted properties was held from May 17 to May 22.
In that sale, 297 parcels were up for bid, but just 90 of those were purchased — a 31% sale rate. Almost 1,000 people registered as bidders, but 30 people bought the properties, records show.
The May sale recovered just over $503,000 in unpaid taxes.
In March, an earlier auction offered 468 parcels but netted just 59 sales. But that public bidding generated $3.6 million in revenue for the county.
