Besides the $151,000 in deposits collected yesterday toward the purchase of $1.5 million in property, the city previously collected about $1.6 million in back taxes plus promises for an additional $1.4 million in payments from 680 tax-delinquent property owners, Bralow said.
Because the city slashed the number of sale properties by 400 earlier in the fall and by 450 more over the weekend, "pickings for investors were pretty slim," said William G. Becker, a regular bidder at the monthly sheriff sales. Nevertheless, he estimated that by early afternoon, sheriff-sale regulars had snapped up about 75 percent of the properties.
The highest price paid for a property during the auction, which ended after 8 1/4 hours at 5:45 p.m., was $46,000 by an unidentified buyer for a building at 3418 St. Vincent St., said Fran Feldman, a spokeswoman for the Department of Revenue. Bidding on the property started at $8,000, she said.
"The city is getting fabulous prices for some of these buildings," said Nathaniel Weiss, 69, a Philadelphia contractor who has been a regular tax-sale investor for 40 years. "Some people are getting carried away and paying more than some of these buildings are worth."
The crowd, eight times larger than the average at the city's regular sheriff sales at City Hall, occupied most of the red folding chairs on the floor of the Civic Center. Construction workers with dusty boots wedged themselves between real estate speculators sporting diamond pinky rings and red ties. Stylish women in mink coats perused the list of properties to be sold in the Legal Intelligencer as mothers, planning their bidding strategy, struggled to stifle squirming children.
