Between 13,000 and 14,000 properties will be auctioned off online at the Wayne County Tax Foreclosures auctions this month and next, creating a morass of information to pick through. LOVELAND Technologies is putting it all at your fingertips with its latest project,
WhyDontWeOwnThis.com.
WhyDontWeOwnThis.com allows users to see what's up for auction through either an online mapping system or listing them through zip codes. Each property entry provides vital information, such as property ID number, opening bid, condition of the property and a Google Street View of the building.
"Someone needs to make this clear," says Jerry Paffendorf, co-founder of
LOVELAND Technologies. "Otherwise it's just a phone book."
The Wayne County Tax Foreclosure Auction sells properties that have been foreclosed on by the county for not paying at least three years worth of taxes. The first auction, starying later this week at Bid4Assets.com, starts bidding prices at the minimum of back taxes owed. The second auction in mid October is for the properties not purchased in the first auction and starts the bidding at $500. Thousands of properties have been foreclosed on in recent years, forcing the county to move it online last year. More than 90 percent of the properties are located in Detroit.
This year's tax foreclosure auction promises to be the biggest yet with a record number of properties and Wayne County extensively promoting it. Add in the convenience of it being online and participation could be record setting. Paffendorf and his two other co-founders at LOVELAND Technologoes hope WhyDontWeOwnThis.com will enable locals to buy problem properties and turn them into assets, keeping them out of the hands of speculators and absentee landlords.
"The bigger bottom line for us is useful social impact," Paffendorf says. "There is a hole in sharing information in Detroit."
Source: Jerry Paffendorf, co-founder of LOVELAND Technologies.
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at
SEMichiganStartup.com.
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