The agency that sells local tax-delinquent properties to good owners willing to fix them up raised almost $200,000 less last year than it did in 2012.
But to the head of the Allen County Community Development Corp., that apparent setback is a blessing in disguise because it indicates the number of owners unable to pay their property taxes is on the decline.
“Our goal is to put ourselves out of business, so I look at it as a positive. Three or four years ago we had hundreds of properties for sale,” said County Building Commissioner Dave Fuller, who in his visit to the County Commissioners Friday is expected to report that in 2013 the corporation sold 49 properties with structures and another 106 vacant lots. That generated $250,276, or about $30,000 more than corporation's annual budget, but significantly less than the $430,000 raised in 2012 or the $775,000 in 2011.
Last year's sales leave the corporation with just three properties containing structures, although Fuller expects to receive about 50 that were not claimed during the county's 2013 sale of tax-delinquent properties. The corporation also owns about 560 vacant lots, most of them in central and southeast Fort Wayne, but many of them can't be sold because they're in a floodplain, are inaccessible or for other reasons.
Formed in 2002 to protect county government from liability, the not-for-profit corporation accepts ownership of only those properties it believes can be sold to responsible buyers. Other tax-sale properties may remain under the jurisdiction of the Commissioners.
Prior to creation of the corporation, the county often donated such properties to not-for-profit development groups or sold them to speculators for as little as $150,000 just to get them back on the tax rolls. Fuller said the corporation's initial asking price is generally about five times the property's annual tax bill. The agency prefers buyers who will live in the home, but will sell to responsible landlords or “flippers.”
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The corporation now owns about 685 properties, Fuller said, compared to a recession-inflated 2,200 four years ago.
