For the first time ever, the City of Knoxville is offering the opportunity to buy surplus City-owned property through an online auction.

Bidding on 26 properties is now underway, and the auction ends at noon on Friday, Jan. 12, 2018.

Powell Auction & Realty is managing the auction on its website. To see photos of and get details about the City-owned properties for sale, or to enter a bid, visit http://bit.ly/SurplusRealEstate.

Most of the properties are vacant lots, and most bids start at just $100. The City acquired them following a tax sale when the owners failed to pay property taxes for a number of years.

The available properties run the gamut. Some tracts are hilly; others are flat. A few are wooded or covered by kudzu. Others are grassy and neatly flanked by neighbors’ trees, fences and back yards.

Selling the properties eliminates the need for City maintenance, like mowing. And it creates a potential for a private owner to develop the property – by building a house, for example, and improving a neighborhood.

“It’s not unusual for the City to work to get surplus, unused property back into the hands of private owners, so that it can be brought back into productive reuse,” said Deputy to the Mayor David Brace, the City’s Chief Operating Officer. “But doing it through an online auction, rather than through a live auction at a government building – that’s something new we’re trying. 

“The aim is to reach a wider audience of potential bidders, because we know that there’s someone who might see a diamond in the rough and have a great idea for redeveloping the property.”

Questions? Call Chris Ruberg, the City’s Real Estate Manager, at 865-215-4465.