BARTOW, Florida/PR Free/June 16, 2005
For the first time in county history, Polk’s public tax certificate sale was conducted entirely on the internet. And, with over 7.6 million ‘hits’ on the ebay style website, this year’s sale was, by all accounts, a success.
“We couldn’t be more pleased with the overall results of this sale,” Tax Collector Joe Tedder stated yesterday, at the conclusion of a 3-day meeting of the Florida Tax Collector’s Association spring conference.
The annual sale was conducted on May 31st of this year, selling 15,460 tax certificates at a value of $12.68 million dollars, reported Bid4Assets, the online auction firm who conducted the sale. This figure represents 96% of the total property value offered, and 78% of the total parcels, up from 66% last year, a significant 12% increase in one year. The remaining 4565 parcels that were not bid, totaled $436,546, were struck off to the county.
Every year, in an attempt to collect unpaid property taxes, Florida counties auction off thousands of tax certificates. This year, however, instead of spending two weeks in a live auction setting, Joe Tedder, Polk County Tax Collector and his staff decided to lead a trend, that involved ‘a whole lot less shouting’ but drew a great deal of interest among investors. In years past, the live auction drew approximately 125 local participants and, according to Asst. Tax Collector Jack Fouts, “was your typical auction, with lots of hollering back and forth. You’re trying to figure out who yelled out the bid first.”
Last year was the first time this online approach was taken by only four Florida counties.
Throughout the process, LienPro, Bid4Asset's online service was also able to provide valuable statistical analysis unique to each county. Those statistics reported a field of potential bidders from 37 states throughout the country, registering 1619 unique participants with more than 1350 actual depositors.
In November of 2004, Manatron, a national leader in specialized tax software, and provider to the local tax office, announced a partnership with Bid4Assets, to deliver Internet tax sale functionality to the Florida market. They conducted sales for seven of the 22 counties who held Internet sales this year. Due to the successes throughout the state, the industry is projecting as many as 40 counties may be involved next year.
Please note: The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of Manatron or its employees. This article is meant for educational purposes only.