![]() This year, it was available for free with an interactive map on the the Cook County Treasurer’s Office website. Opinions differ on how to change the sale to better benefit smaller investors and communities where the lots are located.Ĭook County Treasurer Maria Pappas made it cheaper to participate: In prior years, people who wanted to participate in the sale had to pay a $250 fee to get a hard copy of the enormous spreadsheet that shows which properties would be available. And many properties cycle through the sale again and again, sitting vacant or with unpaid taxes. The person who places the highest bid is entitled to a tax lien on the property they must then complete a series of steps to own the deed to the property.īut companies and big investors snap up properties at the auction, leaving out smaller investors. The Treasurer’s Office uses the sale - which has happened every other year since the ’40s - to find new owners for the properties in hopes of getting them back on the tax rolls. The properties up for auction at the Scavenger Sale have severely delinquent taxes. “Whole neighborhoods are held hostage by the fact that they have to live with vacant housing,” Gainer said. It’s “intolerable” that some properties sit on the list for decades, said Bridget Gainer, a Cook County commissioner and Cook County Land Bank Authority chairwoman. ![]() The majority of such lots are in communities of color that already suffer from disinvestment. In the meantime, the property can be an unused blight on the neighborhood. If a parcel doesn’t sell in 20 years, it’s forfeited to the state. In practice, few properties make it off the list, with most cycling through the Scavenger Sale for years. “Because the amount of money that people would typically need to purchase a property on the market, the Scavenger Sale allows everyday people to buy several properties for a smaller amount,” Penny said. Penny’s firm plans to develop empty South Shore and Austin lots acquired at the sale. The sale is “potentially good” because it allows people to buy who might not normally be able to participate, said Myra Penny, a real estate investor who has used the sale since 2017. “Is there a more equitable way of dealing with properties?” “Why should the scavenger sale property just go into a general pot and then be opened up to the fastest, most aggressive, most well-resourced bidder who gets to the starting line first?” said Michael Davidson, a senior director at the Chicago Community Trust who has worked to make the auction more accessible. But opinions are split on how the sale can better benefit smaller investors in the future while allowing properties to get redeveloped. Officials have made changes to the process, hoping to make the auction more accessible to everyday people. But many of the lots that go up are snapped up by hedge funds and large institutional buyers, or they stay unused for years, if not decades, while going through the sale again and again. The sale is the first step in a complicated process of trying to take over a tax-delinquent property so it can be restored, benefitting its community while returning it to the tax rolls. DOWNTOWN - Nearly 1,000 people gathered at this year’s Scavenger Sale auction, aiming to nab one of the more than 30,000 local properties up for sale. ![]()
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