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by Stephen Ames Berry
The HERKIMER COUNTY LAND AUCTION OF COUNTY OWNED LAND
June 4, 2016 – 11:00 a.m. at HERKIMER COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE HERKIMER, NEW YORK Doors open at 9:30 a.m
If you read our previous post about bidding on Herkimer’s 331 Pleasant Avenue., you’ll know why we think that hidden gem’s a great buy: low cost of acquisition in an area of rapidly appreciating real estate values.
We’ve had success elsewhere, buying low in marginal neighborhoods just before prosperity rolled in, as we did 3 years ago here on Pleasant Avenue.
Our judgment is being affirmed, as prosperity ripples out from nearby booming Utica and its multi-billion dollar Utica Nano Tech site.
Real estate sales figures for this spring won’t be available for a while, but it’s apparent to us that the sale prices of local homes are soaring.
Perceptive home buyers are targeting Central New York not just because of it’s economic rebirth, but for the same reason Elon Musk relocated Solar City from Silicon Valley to Buffalo, and New York State bankrolled Nano Tech Utica: climate change. Climate change and fresh water abundance are the catalysts that will send the Mohawk Valley and Herkimer soaring beyond back into prosperity. As we saw in Boston of the 1990’s, spreading affluence quickly brings the return of good governance and plummeting crime rates. (Neighboring Utica has already cleaned house.)
Looking at Herkimer Property On Auction – What To ignore
Ignore people you may see milling about any of the properties on auction. As with 331 Pleasant Avenue, they don’t want the property to sell, or hope it will sell cheaply to friends if the auction is not widely publicized or potential bidders can be intimated. They often bring in friends from around town to serve as extras in their street theater performances, given at prime viewing times.
Some of the Herkimer county-owned houses on auction, such as 331, are marked as “OCCUPIED.” If a property being auctioned was a rental property, “occupied” doesn’t mean it has tenants. The county owns the property. The county does not have tenants, and no right of tenancy conveyed to the people in 331 Pleasant Avenue or any other county-seized house.
I’m not an attorney, but New York law seems quite clear that if you buy a county-owned property, you have the right to issue a 10-day Notice to Quit to the squatters. It’s a quick and inexpensive process. And in the case of 331 Pleasant Avenue, the local police will be happy to assist. 331 has long served as of Pleasant Avenue’s rapidly eroding empire of dirt. Buy it, you’ll not only get a bargain, you’ll see your equity quickly appreciate as it’s taken out of play, encouraging more new owners to buy into Pleasant Avenue and Herkimer.
Who Else Wants A Secret Herkimer Land Auction Of County Owned Property?
There’s another group who seem to not want this auction publicized: local investors who are members of Herkimer’s good-ol’ boys network, used to snapping up housing bargains at auction. The link to the auction on the Herkimer County Real Property site winked out of existence shortly after I saw it. (I foolishly told an elected official about it.) The local investors are well aware of the rising real estate values and the increasing prosperity. They, too, would like fewer potential competitors to come to the HERKIMER COUNTY LAND AUCTION OF COUNTY OWNED LAND on June 4, 2016 – 11:00 a.m. at HERKIMER COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE HERKIMER, NEW YORK, where doors open at 9:30 a.m. Registration required.
Can’t wait for the bidding to begin at this Herkimer property auction. 
Author Stephen Ames Berry is a former officer of Harvard University and a veteran of the National Security Agency’s US Army Security Agency. Follow him on Twitter @writerredux
