SCHENECTADY : Commercial foreclosures to be put up for auction
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter
Dozens of commercial properties taken through foreclosure will be sold at auction instead of going through the contractor rehab program, Mayor Gary McCarthy said.
   “They’re really commercial properties, multi-family residences, that don’t fi t into the goal of owner-occupied property,” Mc-Carthy said.
   The city will sell 30 to 50 properties through Collar City Auctions by late April or early May, Zoning Officer Steve Strichman said. Bidders will submit proposals, with a minimum bid and specific repair work required.
   The City Council will approve each sale, and buyers will pay the city while also paying a fee to Collar City Auctions for facilitating the process. The auction house is not charging the city for its services.
   Meanwhile, contractors are still waiting to bid on houses they can rehab and quickly flip for a profit. That part of the project was supposed to begin last year.
   It got off to a slow start, with the first few buyers purchasing buildings for themselves rather than rehabbing them to resell. But Building Inspector Eric Shilling said the first five to seven true rehabs will be put up for bid this month, and should be rehabbed quickly.
   Contractors will be able to walk through those houses at an April 21 city-wide open house, Shilling said. Then they can bid on them, with the lowest bid winning the rehab project. Contractors don’t get paid until the house sells.
   Shilling said rolling out the project turned out to be much more complicated than he expected. He needed to get “conceptual approval” from all levels of city government before accepting bids, he said. Otherwise, he said, contractors would get bogged down in bureaucracy.
   “They’re not used to the [City Council] committee cycle and going back multiple times. They’re able to act very, very quickly,” he said. “I need conceptual approval so this thing could move at private sector speed.”
   Some contractors might bid on a project because it can fit between two other projects, and would back out if the project is delayed, he said.
   “Then we lose that contractor. We need to keep pace with their scheduling needs,” he said.
   Now he believes contractors will be able to speed through the process, which includes bidding on a house, getting approval from the City Council and picking up the building permits needed to start work.
   He’s enthusiastic about selling other property through Collar City Auctions as well. Some “distressed” residences will be auctioned off in the future, he said, adding that those houses wouldn’t work for the contractor program because the contractor wouldn’t make a profit. But a landlord willing to “put a lot of sweat equity into them” might consider it a good deal, he said.
   “We came to realize as we dug deeper and deeper into this … we have to present a host of options and avenues,” he said.

What happened to selling so they WOULD be  owner occupied?  So these properties will be bought (if they even sell) by people who don't give a crap.

McCheese and brain storm rarely collide in the same sentence. Does this included the many City churches seized for nonpayment of insane DEM fees? lol They are clueless. The City is broke with no way to climb out of the tax exempt hell Death Ray
keeps adding too. Property after property Downtown permanently taken off the tax rolls by Morris or Death Ray. And the problem is Union College? Colleges are tax exempt. They are mad that they can't put the squeeze on them too. The best
thing Marion, McCheese and Leesa could do for the City is reason in disgrace.

It is going to be interesting to see how well the auction does.  Is the list of properties available yet?

rp, they are claiming that these are 'commercial properties' but I'm having a hard time believing that we have "30 to 50" foreclosed buildings which "don't fit the goal of owner-occupied property".
You know, the city has held tax foreclosure auctions in the past, but somehow they had to attempt to rebuild the wheel and come up with some cockamamie and suspect "program" which predictably didn't work.
The main problem was that the city had been selling tax liens to a private company, so when the private company decided it wasn't worth it any longer,the city was asleep at the switch and didn't know how to deal with a bunch of property made unappealing to buyers by the city's own actions. It will be interesting to see what happens, the article was a little garbled, I couldn't tell when they were talking about the old program or the new one. If it is really still as convoluted as it sounds, lots of luck getting any competent contractors with any sense to even bid on these.

i'm sure that the word got out to the downstate folks, cause nobody in their right mind, who actually lives here, would spend their money on this trash!!!
the downstate folks buy these properties for nothing more than a WRITE OFF.....they have no interest or investment in the county!

The city will soon offer up its largest group of properties for auction in years as officials try to unload up to 50 commercial and multi-unit family houses taken through foreclosure last year.

Schenectady hasn't engaged in such a large auction in nine years. In recent years, the city sold its tax liens to a collection company instead of foreclosing.


Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/loca.....89.php#ixzz2PRCwLlfb

This includes a pic lol

Quoted from Madam X

rp, they are claiming that these are 'commercial properties' but I'm having a hard time believing that we have "30 to 50" foreclosed buildings which "don't fit the goal of owner-occupied property".
.

Commercial properties in theory only. It does not say they are in commercial zoned areas.

2 family homes are not commercial properties unless they are in commercial zoned areas.