The next Berrien County Land Auction will be Friday, October 31.

Berrien County Treasurer Shelly Weich tells us this will be the second and final auction of the year, selling off the last pieces of foreclosed property that the office didn’t sell with the larger summer auction.

“I have 14 properties that will be up for auction again,” Weich said. “Minimum bid is $100 each. I have eight vacant lots, four houses. Three of them are basically fire damaged or condemned, and one commercial building that has fire damage to it.”

Some of the parcels are very small strips of land right next to other properties. Weich says the buyers in the treasurer’s auctions often live right next door to the properties they’re buying.

“Usually the vacant lots, it’s most likely it’s the neighbor trying to expand their property. So those are usually the people that will scoop up these vacant lots.”

Most of the available properties are in Benton Harbor, although there’s one in Stevensville and a couple in the Niles area.

Unlike the summer auction, when the minimum bid is the amount owed in back taxes on a lot, Weich says all you need is $100 to bid on any of the fall auction properties.

The auction will be online only on October 31 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. The website is Tax-Sale.info.