July 24 at the Auctions

The banks didn’t auction off any foreclosed homes at City Hall in San Francisco this afternoon. However, they did auction off one neighbor’s home when I visited the San Francisco Auction.com auctions on the morning of Tuesday, July 24.

Unlike the auctions that take place at City Hall, Auction.com, LLC (Surety Bond 0475258), holds their foreclosure auctions in the expansive Green Room on the second floor of the San Francisco War Memorial Building across the street at 401 Van Ness Ave.

Although registration beings “promptly at 8:00am”, I arrived at around 8:15am. There are several doorways that serve as the front entrance of the building, which points “east” toward City Hall.

One enters into a large lobby centered on the entrance to the Herbst Theatre. On either side of the main entrance to the theatre, there is an elevator. The day I visited the elevator on the left (“south”) was out of service (and may still be), so I took the right elevator (“north”) to the second floor. A sign in the lobby indicated that one could ascend via the stairs as well.

Upon leaving the elevator on the second floor, a sign indicated that the entrance to the Green Room was to the right (“south”).

However, I noticed that there was another entrance to the Green Room almost directly forward from the elevator, possibly reserved for use by Auction.com staff since it opens into the vestibule behind the auction platform (“north” end of the Green Room).

I entered the Green Room into the vestibule at the “south” end of the room and found a greeting table with Auction.com literature and a laptop (picture below taken after greeter left table).

No one was sitting there when I arrived, but when I entered the main section of the room, a fellow (well-dressed with beard, presumably male) came over to greet me and lead me back to the greeting table, where he asked me if I planned to bid on any of the properties up for auction.

I said “no”, that I was just there to observe. Nonetheless, he asked me to register for the auction by listing my name and signing and dating a form. I did so and he gave me a listing of the properties up for sale that day at the auction.

The main section of the room had a podium with a microphone in the center of the “north” end, flanked by two folding tables, the left (“west”) of which supported a projector at one end that projected information about the properties for sale on the wall to the left (“west”).

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
At least one Auction.com staff person sat at that table (in a medium-length dress wearing platform shoes, presumably female).

On the right (“east”) sat two other Auction.com staff people (one well-dressed in slacks and vest with a beard, presumably male, the other, wearing a medium-length dress and platform shoes, presumably female) both with laptops, at least one of which was connected to a portable printer.

At the podium stood another Auction.com staff person, the auctioneer, who was a bit older than the other four, wearing black slacks and a black jacket and tie.

Facing the podium at a distance of around a dozen feet were three ranks of two tables side-by-side on the left (“west”) side and two ranks of one table each on the right (“east”) with a central aisle about 14 feet in width and smaller a little space on either side of the tables.

The door to a large balcony on the right side was open and investors occasionally wandered out there.

Auctioneer Mark Gellman (Surety Bond 0388440) called the auction to order at almost exactly 9am and read all of the rules and regulations pertinent to the auction.

He read off postponements and cancellations. Then he cried the sale of one home at 336 Bridgeview Drive which investor Raymond Grinsell purchased (wearing glasses below, note newspaper headline!).

Some of the investors who attend the auctions at City Hall, such as Jeff Berger, David Levy, Raymond Grinsell, and Memo, also attend the Auction.com auctions.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
At the end of the auction, one of the Auction.com staff people sat with Raymond Grinsell presumably to settle payment on the foreclosed property he had just purchased at auction.

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