Another way to invest in foreclosures

I've previously discussed the pros and cons of buying properties at the public auctions when the lender actually is foreclosing on the property. As the national foreclosure crisis has continued to grow, another opportunity has become quite common, and, to a degree, without some of the risks that the "auction on the courthouse steps" has. This is what the auctioneers call the Foreclosure Auction. More properly, it should be called the Post-Foreclosure Auction because the properties auctioned off in these auctions already have been foreclosed upon and the banks owning them are resorting to an auction because the owning banks have subsequently been unable to get them sold.
The process is usually a one or two day auction run by a professional auction company. For sale are hundreds, sometimes thousands, of properties that have one thing in common--they are bank-owned foreclosed properties. Often more than one bank's foreclosed properties are included in an auction. In most cases a brochure giving some details of all of the properties to be auctioned are made available to anyone wanting them. Usually a series of open houses is held before the auction, and buyers can even have inspections done before the auctions. Unlike the "courthouse steps" auction, these post-foreclosure auctions even allow escrow periods to provide time for financing and title searches.
At the auction, each property is put up to bid, usually with a minimum starting bid. After that, it's traditional auction--highest bidder wins and owns the property. At a typical one of these auctions, the action is loud and fast--approximately 25 properties each hour are sold, and the auctions usually last most of the day and into the evening.
As for values, typical winning bids seem to average anywhere from one third to just over half of what the claimed recent values are for the properties sold. There are a number of auction firms specializing in such auctions, and they can be Googled for further information on time and location of the upcoming auctions.