About 65 cents for every dollar it’s estimated to be worth. That’s Auction.com’s own Q3 2026 numbers for what buyers actually paid at foreclosure auction, 65.3 percent of estimated market value. And that’s the price when someone actually buys it. More than half the time, nobody does, and the house goes back to the lender instead.
Doesn’t the Bank Just Want to Keep Getting My Payments?
Yes, and that’s exactly why the number at auction is so low. A lender forcing a sale isn’t hoping to come out ahead. It’s setting a floor it’s willing to live with rather than keep carrying the loan. Auction.com calls that floor the seller credit bid, and in the third quarter it came in at 64.2 percent of what the house is estimated to be worth. That’s down from 65.1 percent in the second quarter and about flat against a year ago. Sixty-four cents on the dollar is the lender’s own number, set before anybody else bids.
Why Doesn’t the House Just Sell at That Price?
Often it doesn’t sell at all. Auction.com’s sales rate, the share of houses offered that actually find a buyer, came in at 45.5 percent in the third quarter, down from the second quarter and roughly flat compared to a year ago. More than half the time, nobody meets even that 64 percent floor, and the house goes back to the lender as bank owned property. Once that happens, the price drops again. Buyers of bank owned homes paid 62.2 percent of value in the third quarter, below 65.2 percent in the second quarter, and the lender’s own asking price on those homes fell too, to 74.9 percent of value from 77.1 percent a year earlier. A failed auction doesn’t hold the number where it was. It pushes it lower.
Does the Type of Loan I Have Change the Number?
Yes, by a lot. FHA loans made up 43 percent of all completed foreclosure auction volume on Auction.com in the third quarter, the biggest share since the start of 2015, and the floor on those loans came in at 62.6 percent, down from 64.6 percent a year ago. The sales rate on FHA loans actually rose 19 percent as that floor came down, which is Auction.com’s own way of saying a lower number moves a house faster. VA loans priced the highest of any type by a wide margin, 76.3 percent. USDA loans priced the lowest, 55.9 percent. Loans backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac came in at 62.1 percent, with that volume up 30 percent on the year. Privately held loans sat at 66.8 percent. What kind of loan you have isn’t just paperwork sitting in a file. It’s part of what a lender decides a house like yours is worth letting go for.
Does It Matter When I Bought the House?
It does. Mortgages from 2022 or later made up 46 percent of all completed foreclosure auctions on Auction.com in the third quarter, and that volume rose 73 percent on the year. Those same recent loans carried the highest floor of any vintage, 70.5 percent, against 48 percent for loans from 2010 to 2014 and 50.2 percent for anything written before 2000. Auction.com’s own head of market economics, Daren Blomquist, put it plainly: that 2022-and-later group “continues moving through the default pipeline” and is “arriving in the foreclosure auction market in increasing numbers.” Loans from the Great Recession years, 2005 to 2009, fell 22 percent on the year and are now under 9 percent of the activity. Anything written before 2015 is 19 percent of what’s happening now. If you work with distressed sellers yourself, that shift matters too. The files coming through right now carry thinner equity than the ones most people still picture from the last recession.
What’s Happening to These Numbers in Florida?
Florida’s completed foreclosure auction volume on Auction.com was up 67 percent over the year, 8 percent of the national total and second only to Texas at 15 percent. None of the specific Florida metros Auction.com named are in the seven counties I work in Northeast Florida, and I don’t want anybody reading this to assume Jacksonville is one of them. In Ocala, the lender’s floor dropped 22 percent from a year ago. In North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton it dropped 17 percent, and in Lakeland, 14 percent. Pensacola went the other way, up 25 percent. The share of auctions that actually sold moved even harder in some of those same metros, up 553 percent in Ocala and up 192 percent in North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, while Tampa’s sales rate slipped 6 percent. And the next quarter is already bigger. Scheduled auction volume on Auction.com is running 11 percent ahead of last October, 31 percent ahead for November, and 15 percent ahead for December.
Why Does This Matter If You’re Behind on Payments?
Because the number a lender is actually chasing at auction isn’t what you owe. It’s somewhere around 64 cents on the dollar, and more than half the time it doesn’t even get that. Whatever’s left after the sale is the gap a deficiency judgment gets measured against, and Florida is a recourse state, so that leftover balance doesn’t disappear when the gavel comes down. I wrote last week about how that one-year clock works and what caps it. A short sale puts that same math in front of the lender before the auction date instead of after it, with its own paperwork and its own outcome depending on your loan, your lender, and your numbers. I’m not an attorney and I’m not a CPA, and what happens to a deficiency, and what it does to your taxes or your credit, are calls for them to make, not me. What I can tell you is what the numbers at auction actually look like going in, and let you decide what to do with that.
I work out of Jacksonville, and distressed property is most of what crosses my desk. If any of this is close to your own situation, I’m easy to reach.
JimArmstrong904@gmail.com, or (904) 671-4161 if a call’s easier.
Jim Armstrong, REALTOR® · Momentum Realty · SFR® (Short Sales and Foreclosure Resource) certified. This is general information, not legal, tax, or financial advice.
Momentum Realty is not associated with the government, and our service is not approved by the government or your lender.
