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Auction.com’s January “Super Tuesday'' foreclosure auction event indicated a strong housing market, according to an analysis by Auction.com. Daren Blomquist, VP, Market Economics at Auction.com notes that views on the Auction.com mobile app Foreclosure Interact feature jumped 51% on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2020.
“Super Tuesday” is a monthly event held by Auction.com on the first Tuesday of every month, with properties in Georgia and Texas up for sale.
“Given that Auction.com accounts for close to 50 percent of all foreclosure auction sales nationwide, the sharp increases in views on Foreclosure Interact—which allows prospective auction buyers to engage with live foreclosure auctions from their mobile devices—certainly indicates strong demand from real estate investors and other distressed property buyers to kick off the new year,” Blomquist said.
The top three markets metro areas with the most Foreclosure Interact views on Jan. 7 were all in Georgia and Texas: Atlanta, Dallas, and Austin, which Auction.com calls “unsurprising” given the event. However, six of the top 10 metro areas with the most screen views were outside of Texas, indicating an increased volume of remote buyers: New York, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Chicago.
Auction.com also notes that there is a strong correlation between mobile app views and the National Association of Realtors (NAR) existing home sales data, as “demand in the distressed market is also a reliable leading indicator of sales strength in the larger retail housing market.”
“The out-of-state increases in Foreclosure Interact views on Super Tuesday indicates that these events are attracting interest even from real estate investors living outside the two states where Super Tuesday auctions occur,” Blomquist adds. “That’s somewhat surprising given that prospective bidders typically need to be physically present at the foreclosure auction events—or have a proxy bidder present—to bid on properties brought to auction.”
