St. Louis County, Minn., made a cool $350,500 selling 25 parcels that had been given up by their previous owners for non-payment of property taxes. The tax-forfeited homes, lots and lakefront parcels were part of the second of three auctions the county holds annually.
The lots are now back in private ownership and will be back on the tax rolls, reducing the burden for other taxpayers in the county, county officials note.
A total of 70 properties had been offered for bid; the unsold lots are still available for their appraised value through the St. Louis County Land and Minerals Department.
Among the properties purchased are two homes in Duluth and one in Chisholm, several empty lots in Tower, Floodwood, Chisholm and Hibbing and four lots on the bay side of Park Point that are too small for homes. The most valuable property sold was a five-acre parcel in the city of Rice Lake, originally valued at $32,100, which sold following a bidding war for $52,500.
The county's next auction will be Oct. 12 at the Miners Memorial Building in Virginia.
The county has been working with local communities in recent years to get more abandoned and useable tax-forfeited land and building back on tax rolls. The county managed about 900,000 acres of tax-forfeited land, most of it managed as forest.
