City Properties Go at Auction

Walker Associates' auctioneer gets the bidding started.^

John Turner and Bobby Draper of Miscellaneous Concrete were bidding on a property adjacent to their business.^

Potential bidders line up to get registered.^

These photos give some indication of what's being sold.^

The crowd was scattered around at the auction.^

By DAN SMITH

If you're living in the illusion that you own that property you occupy or that your business rests upon, Roanoke City gave you substantial reason to disabuse yourself at noon today with its "Judicial Sale of Real Property" at the Jefferson Center.

Twenty five parcels of property in the city, most owing taxes, were put on the auction block to be sold to the highest bidder. Taxes were owed on the properties and in some cases the amount in arrears was, at best, niggling. But the city wants its money and the "rights" of the owners met their match when confronted by that need.

The city advertised the sale (somewhat misleadingly) with a full page listing of about 200 properties in Monday's edition of a local daily. The sale of those properties actually takes place March 5 and you had to have good eyes to determine that. Some of those properties have outstanding tax bills as low as $166 (Julius Geter's property on Fairfax Ave.) and $195.51 (Debra Preston's lot on 7th Ave.).

Wednesday's auction was conducted by Walker Properties in Roanoke, a veteran of these sales, and Roy Creasey, an attorney for the city, said the sales had to each be approved by a judge who would take any "reasonable bid." "Reasonable," says Creasey, has a wide range of definitions, but if you're somewhere around the assessed value of the property (some astonishingly low; $800 for a lot on Norfolk Ave., for example), you're in the clear.

John Turner, owner of Miscellaneous Concrete in Roanoke, showed up to bid on a piece of property adjoining his, hoping to expand the company's footprint. There were probably 50 bidders in the room and the auctioneer promised to move it along slowly in order for bidders "to think about what you're doing." Taking the impulse buying aspect out of it.