nwi.com   (NorthWest Indiana)

Lake tax sale will close traditional bidding

Monday, August 27, 2007 12:23 AM CDT

 BY BILL DOLAN
bdolan@nwitimes.com
219.662.5328

CROWN POINT | Lake County commissioners hope to unload hundreds of tax-delinquent properties next week in a sale that also may be the last before a change in the way tax sales are conducted.

Potential buyers will gather one more time Tuesday and Wednesday in the Government complex's auditorium. An auctioneer will ramble through hundreds of real estate parcels as audience members hoist registration cards to signal their offers.

But the future of tax sales is online, according to James Hughes, president of Indianapolis-based SRI Inc., which has been conducting the auctions for Lake County for several years.

"An online tax sale has a much bigger audience," Hughes said. "You sell a lot more properties, and people get excited and active at bidding up prices."

A split Lake County Board of Commissioners voted earlier to move their future tax sales onto the Web hoping to generate more revenue.

Next week's traditional sale involves about 800 parcels for which taxes have been unpaid for at least two years and have been passed over in a previous public auction by the county treasurer's office.

"In other states where we have run this, we have had bidding from foreign countries," Hughes said.