When government auctions went online, what was for sale got lost
Erika Ginsberg-Klemmt and William Anderson met online, but not in a good way.
Driven by the misconception that they had stumbled on a brilliant formula that would allow them to buy a Siesta Key condominium for pennies on the dollar, the two novice real estate investors began unknowingly bidding against each other on Sarasota County’s new online auction Web site.
Anderson ended up prevailing with a bid of $86,001 and believed that he held unencumbered title to a condo once valued at $327,000. But all Anderson really won was the right to pay off $20,000 in unpaid association dues.
More than a dozen investors who made similar mistakes in Sarasota and Duval counties since July are now out hundreds of thousand of dollars.