Today's missed opportunity

I was hoping to be able to come home this afternoon and gleefully post that Katie and I are the new owners of the house next door to Taylor. I can't though, because we're not.

For a few weeks now, we've been eyeing the property next door to Taylor, which was foreclosed after a lady skipped town due to lack of money (unsubstantiated rumors, but good enough to be on my blog). We read a notice on the door that said the property would go to auction at the bossier sheriff's sale.

After a week or so of talking with the mortgage people at Katie's bank, we ended up with 85,000 in loan money (our pre-agreed maximum bid) in the hopes that with that amount we could place a winning bid at the Sheriff's sale.

So, today I took off work at 9:15 and headed over to the Bossier courthouse (10:00 every wed. in the lobby). The bidding was looking good at first. Three cars, a boat, and then the housing auction began. First house went for 40 something as best I can recall. Second house, in the 60's. Third house, the 40's again. Our house came up soon after, and the auctioneer announced that he "need an opening bid of $79,100". No soon after those words were out of his mouth, the plaintiff's (mortgage holder in this case... citi bank) representative spoke up and gave a bid of $92,000. Just like that our hopes of a house and a dog (I want a dern dog!) were crushed.

The house ended up going for $94,000, at least a $20,000 discount from market value. I'm not really sure who the person was that ended up buying it, or whether it was going to be for personal use... but that was a high price for real estate to use only as an investment (since you can't view the property until after you've bought it).

Anyways, Katie and I are pretty bummed out about it, but we're still hopeful that we'll get a good another opportunity sometime soon. If we don't get another gem like this opportunity was, we'll just wait until November when Katie gets herself a real jobby job.

Until then, puppy of my dreams... until then.