[StBernard] St. Bernard sold 149 properties bought by Road Home for about $720, 000

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard sold 149 properties bought by Road Home for about $720,000
Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune By Benjamin
Alexander-Bloch, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune 
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on October 06, 2014 at 3:00 PM, updated October 06, 2014 at 7:59 PM
 
St. Bernard Parish government this weekend sold 149 properties to the
highest bidder, along with one previously renovated home, for about
$720,000.

The Saturday auction was the second in a series of auctions as the parish
government attempts to return to commerce former Louisiana Land Trust and
Road Home properties.

The parish awarded the Sperry Van Ness/Gilmore Auction & Realty the contract
to auction the remaining inventory. The one renovated home -- a
1,085-square-foot, single-family home at 2001 Aycock St., in Arabi -- sold
for about $70,000.

About $63,000 of that $70,000 will go into the general fund with $7,000
going to the auction, Parish President Dave Peralta confirmed on Monday.
Peralta said that home was purchased under former Parish President Craig
Taffaro's administration.

Of the 149 lots sold at auction on Saturday, parish revenue for those sales
will go directly into an LLT account, Peralta said. There was $587,700 in
revenue from the recent auction, he said.

The smallest amount paid for a lot was $500 and the largest was $18,000,
Peralta said.

He said money in the LLT account is used for program costs and to pay for
the salary of employees in the program. He said that the money also is used
to maintain the remaining empty lots still owned by the parish and to
advertise for upcoming auctions.

The state initially acquired about 4,464 lots in St. Bernard under the Road
Home program from homeowners who decided not to rebuild after Hurricane
Katrina. The Louisiana Land Trust in turn sold about half of those lots to
neighboring property owners, in what was dubbed the Lot Next Door program.

But under that program, properties only could be used as a yard or for home
expansion, such as a pool, garage or an attached guesthouse -- not for new
home construction.  

Residents signed purchase agreements on about 2,400 Lot Next Door
properties, and then others were sold in what was dubbed a Housing
Opportunity Program that for the first time allowed owners to build new
homes on the lots. Some other lots were transferred to public entities, such
as the Lake Borgne Basin Levee District and the Sheriff's Office.

Ultimately, the state transferred the remaining 1,448 properties to the
parish before the first open parish auction in April of this year.

That April auction included 136 residential lots, eight single-family homes
and 128 development lots. Partnering with AmeriBid, LLC, the parish awarded
all those lots to the highest bidder. A total 130 lots were sold, after
buyers backed out of their contracts for six of the vacant properties, said
Kevin Reichert, the parish's LLT sales, marketing, and recovery coordinator.

The April auction netted about $1.1 million. Fernando Palacios, a regional
director for AmeriBid, said the lowest price a lot sold for was $1,200, and
the highest price was $60,000.

The parish government currently has 1,318 former LLT properties. After all
149 properties are sold at this second auction, that still would leave the
parish with 1,166 properties.

In terms of when the next auction will occur, Peralta said on Monday that he
is shooting for early next year but that it could depend on the parish's
progress working with developers to get some "builder bundles" together, in
essence contracting with a developer who might agree to create homes on a
group of lots, with the hope that might help prospective homebuyers envision
what can be done on the properties. 

Here is the list of the 151 properties up that were up for auction on
Saturday, Oct. 4, 2014:
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/10/st_bernard_sold_149_propertie
s.html