How AuctionIntel works
Real answers, not marketing copy — this is an honest description of where the data comes from and how it's used, including where things are genuinely limited.
Where the data comes from
AuctionIntel only collects from official government sources or pages that explicitly permit automated access — every source is individually reviewed (robots.txt checked, terms of use read) before it's turned on, and we identify ourselves honestly rather than disguising our traffic. Right now that's real sheriff and trustee sale listings across 17 states, refreshed automatically once a day.
The opportunity score
Each listing is scored on four real, computed components: equity (opening bid vs. an estimated market value), bid accessibility (how the opening bid compares to similar recent listings in that county), timing (how far out the sale is), and risk (keyword flags pulled from the actual legal notice text, plus occupancy status where stated). Where a component can't be computed honestly — no matched valuation, for example — it's excluded from the average rather than guessed at or zeroed out.
Estimated market value
For New Jersey listings, this comes from the state's own official assessed-value records, adjusted by that municipality's real equalization ratio (published by the NJ Division of Taxation) to approximate true market value rather than just raw assessed value. This valuation pipeline is currently NJ-specific — listings in other states show real opening bid and scoring, but market value stays blank until we build out state-specific valuation sources for them too.
AI, grounded in real facts
The AI explanation and chat on each listing are instructed to use only the specific facts we've actually collected about that listing — the score components, the legal notice text, real nearby comps, the state's actual bidding procedure — and to say plainly when something isn't available rather than inventing an answer. It's still AI-generated and can make mistakes; it's not legal or financial advice.
Real comps, not fabricated prices
This source never publishes a final sale price for any listing, for any county, ever — we checked directly against real closed listings before building anything around it. So "nearby comps" shows real opening bids and real outcomes (sold to an outside bidder, bought back by the lender, redeemed by the owner) for similar recently-closed auctions in the same county, never a fabricated sale price.
How to actually bid
AuctionIntel doesn't process bids or payments — it can't, these are real sheriff/trustee sales run by the county or court. Each listing links to the source's own search page, and includes real, cited sale-day procedures for that state (deposit requirements, payment deadlines, in-person vs. online) researched from actual court rules and statutes, not guessed at.
What we're honest about not having
These sources don't publish property photos or allow interior access before the sale — that's standard for this asset class, not a gap on our end. Real due diligence (title search, drive-by, county assessor records) is still on you. Some counties' sheriff offices simply don't publish an opening bid or a minimum bid at all; where that's true, we show it as missing rather than substituting a different number (like the judgment amount) that would be misleading.