Vancouver homes, condos up for auction at tax sale

Even if you don't have a million dollars, there's still a way to make a buck off Vancouver's housing market.

The city is holding its annual "tax sale" Wednesday, which means it isauctioning off properties where the owner has defaulted on paying property tax for the last threeyears, and officials atCity Hall are expectingafull houseof about 200 people to attend.

Esther Lee, director of financial services with the Cityof Vancouver, says anyone can bid on the properties, which are listed along with theiroutstanding tax amounts on the city's websitea week before the auction.

The successful bidder has to pay the outstanding taxes immediately, butthe original owner still has one year to repay the property tax billalong with asix per cent annualinterest rate to the winning bidder.

Leesays many of thepeople who bid atthe auction are actually looking for that high rate of return, rather than a piece of real estate.

"It's a way to earn a good rate of interest on cash that they may invest for a short term," she said. "The challenge with that is there's no way to know how long that term is.

"A property owner could redeem the very next day, they could wait until one year later, so your investment earning of sixper cent is really dependent on when that redemption could happen."

Of course, if the owner doesn't come forward, the bidder has to actually buy the property.

But Lee saysthat is rare. A tax sale auctioned property in Vancouver has only changed hands once since 2008.

In that case, Lee says the owner of the property was already trying to sell.