Bill Blog

I haven't seen this before in my area. It has come to the attention of several other people in my area as well.

There are these little yellow signs, similar to the one here, in my neighborhood. They are advertising an online auction for a home that was foreclosed on. This particular home is a 3BR, 1BA, 1,100 sqft home that was sold a couple of years ago for $54,000. The home appears to be in good condition.

The company holding the auction advertises it as an online only auction. Their name is Williams and Williams Real Estate Auctions (www.WilliamsAuction.com). You must go to their web site and register to receive more information, view the starting price, place any bids or find details as to how you can tour the home. Private buyers can register as well as realtors. Brokers must register if a sales associate wants to place bids for a client or themselves.

I was watching the auction of the home in my neighborhood. Anyone who's used eBay before knows you don't want to bid until the last few minutes. Any bids placed before that time just raises the price unecessarily. The auction started at $1,000 on November 14 at 12pm. Now, 2pm, November 18 the price is up to $11,500. One particular bidder has a maximum bid that has been overcoming other bids.

The week before the auction I tried 3 times to get access to the home by calling the 800 number. Each time I was told the auction company would call me back. For some reason they did not have a lockbox on the front door. The company reps I spoke with on the phone did not know why that was.  I'm told interested parties have been entering the home through a window to tour the home.

When I was unable to get access to the home I stopped and looked in the windows. To my surprise was another agent's card taped to a front window. I called that agent and was surprised to hear what he said. Apparently, he had done the cleanup work on the home to prepare it for sale (it was a typical foreclosure). The bank that owns the home then let this auction company take over the sale leaving this agent out in the cold. He told me he plans to place a lien on the home to recover his expenses. I'm not sure a lien will be possible as the owner would have changed but whatever.

If you are a buyer interested in bidding on a home for auction on this web site call me at 270-994-3749.

Saturday (yesterday) I attended a couple of auctions. The first one was for a couple of tracts near Mike Smith's new location next to I-24 here in Paducah. The tracts totaled a little over 7 acres in two tracts. Included was a modular home that is being rented for $650 / month (I think). The land in that area is development property. This area is currently home to several hotels, Mike Smith Toyota, Heartland Homes and several other businesses. I understand that Mike Smith paid about $115,000 per acre of his new car lot. These two tracts sold for a mere $50,000 per acre at the auction I attended. The auctioneer didn't appear real happy about the selling price.

The second auction I attended was for a home at 1531 Jefferson St in Paducah. This victorian home was a 4BR, 2 BA home with nearly 2,400 sq ft of living space. The asking price of this home was $96,000 when it was listed with a local brokerage. The home appeared in good condition although one of the upstairs rooms I toured had a severely crooked floor. This home sold for $70,000

The auctioneer didn't appear to be very pleased with either of these auctions. I wonder what his sellers opinions are now that the auction is over. Auctions may lead to an immediate sale of property but the sale amount may be less than what's expected, a trade of sorts.

The auctioneer charged a 10% buyer premium.

On November 24 at 1:30pm the McCracken County Master Commission will hold another monthly auction. The following properties are to be included in this month's round. The auction is held inside the courthouse at the foot of the steps.

• 3141 Broadway (Paducah's old Coke plant), to recover costs of $1,260,802.77
• 201 & 217 Glenn St, to recover costs of $1,002,084.21
• 7260 McNeil-Alsip Road, to recover costs of $167,336.52
• 2902 Clark St, to recover costs of $71,427.83
• 8825 Old Mayfield Road in Boaz, to recover costs $66,720.17
• 2701 Madison St, to recover costs of $46,747.10
• 290 Alben Barkley Dr, to recover costs of $106,069.54
• 1912 Adams St, to recover costs of $46,332.13
• 832 South 5th St, to recover costs of $54,368.15
• 1822 Broad St, to recover costs of $92,523.28
• 3418 Buckner Lane, to recover costs of $124,954.07
• 412 Oaks Road, to recover costs of $23,954.43
• 4250 Contest Road, to recover costs of $9,545.00 and $55,057.48
• 2930 Alabama St, to recover costs of $67,149.62

Many of these auctions may be cancelled due to agreements being reached by the owners and mortgage holders. Payoff of the sale amount is typically expected within 30 days.

Generally, a preview of the property is not permitted as the master commissioner does not have access to the properties. If anyone would like information on any of these properties I might be able to provide a small amount of info. Email or call me with the address of the property.

With today being election day the kids didn't have to go to school - at least for school anyway. Our voting precinct is at the school.

I set the alarm clock to go off at 6:30am so I got to sleep in a few minutes. After getting ready my son and I headed off to cast my vote. My son is 10 and this is the 3rd time he's been with me.

While on the drive over there I told him to keep it quiet while we were in the booth as I didn't need everyone knowing how I was voting. To my surprise he didn't say a word while we were in there except to tell me I had to close the flap while I was making a write in. After we left I asked him how he knew to do that. He said he had heard the others asking the same question and he had heard the precinct workers answer.

Besides the normal races I voted for, I'm interested in seeing what happens to the city of Lone Oak. Will it be dissolved or not? See a previous blog of mine about that issue. Another race is for my representative of county school board. The school board is planning a high school consolidation and most everyone is opposed to it except the school board. Many residents plan to vote them out of office. Unfortunately, the school board plans to move quickly so that even a new school board will have to plan for a consolidation.

In 1979, business owner Carl Ligon lead the move to incorporate a half-square mile area of Lone Oak, KY to avoid being annexed by the city of Paducah. The effort succeeded, however, the city hasn't been able to grow because of the same reason the city incorporated in the first place - neighboring residents don't want to be annexed and pay additional taxes.

Since the incorporation in 1979, Lone Oak residents have enjoyed their own police department, mayor, city commission and taxes. Now, residents are fed up with paying the taxes and say they are not receiving much in return or would rather go without.

One benefit of the incorporation is in the city's business licenses. Anyone needing a business license in Lone Oak will find them incredibly reasonable. Licenses are a flat $100 per year. This fee is significantly cheaper than in the city of Paducah where the fee is based on revenue. Additionally, the city payroll tax is 1.5% whereas the city of Paducah is 2%.

This election day these residents will vote on whether to dissolve their city and stop paying the additional taxes. If vote succeeds the city will dissappear 30 days after the vote. The sheriff's department will take over the police department duties and the taxes for the year will go to the county. The payroll tax will disappear as well.

The city of Paducah and McCracken County have been considering a merger. Talks of the merger have been delayed due to the unknown future of the city of Lone Oak. After the November 4th vote merger talks can continue.

The Delta Queen riverboat left Paducah for the last time on Monday, October 27. The riverboat will no longer be allowed to sail the rivers of the midwest due to a refusal by Congress to issue an exemption as has been done since 1966.

In 1966 Congress passed a Safety of Life at Sea Law that forbids the Delta Queen from operating because it is primarily constructed of wood. The current exemption expires on November 1, 2008.

I understand, from people who were at the riverfront watching it leave, that Paducah didn't want to let go. Apparently there was enough of a breeze blowing that it wasn't able to easily leave our riverport.

After I got up this morning I checked the newspaper as I usually do. I always read the online version of the paper as it's easier and cheaper for me. A monthly subscription of the online version is about $5.50 / month.

On the frontpage was an article about tax rates rising while property values have been decreasing. Next to the article was a photo of a home with a Prudential sign in front of it. To my surprise the house was a listing of mine and the sign was mine! Unfortunately, the address of the home was not listed with the photo.

The photo was taken by Lance Dennee of the paducah Sun.

Meet Bruce Lunsford. Candidate for US Senate in Kentucky.

There's a TV and radio commercial here in Kentucky advertising Bruce Lunsford's (D) bid for the senate. He's running against incumbent Mitch McConnell (R).

One of the statements in Lunsford's ads says "He met payroll".

What idiot thought that up?

Doesn't every business owner across the country meet payroll? Does this make every business owner qualified for a position in the US Senate? I think not.

So you met payroll. Big deal! Did you manage to put your shoes on the right feet in the morning as well?

Last Christmas, my wife bought me a ticket for a "Discovery Flight" from Midwest Aviation. This business is located next to the Barkley Regional Airport just west of Paducah. Midwest offers aviation services to the area out of Barkley.

This Discovery Flight was, IMO, cheaply priced at a mere $75 for about a 30 minute plane ride. My 10 year old son and I took our plane ride yesterday. Of course, this plane ride was everything my son talked about for a couple of days beforehand.

We arrived at the airport 10 minutes before our scheduled time. We found the front desk easily using the directions I was given to navigate the building. I handed the ticket to the young lady at the desk and she said I could wait on the couch for a few minutes. A gentleman, probably in his early 20's quickly arrived and introduced hisself. He asked me if I had any interest in flight lessons. The Discovery Flights are intended to give people a first hand introduction to flight which might lead into flight lessons.

After talking briefly about my interest in flight lessons, we headed out to the aircraft. I don't have specs about the aircraft but it was a small, 4 seater 2005 Cessna. He told us how to get in, buckle up and be careful what we touched. I sat in THE pilot's seat and my son sat in the back seat.

To my suprise there were only 3 round gauges on the dash. The rest of the info was on two large Garmin displays. They had tons and tons of information in them. The information I saw had air speed, ground speed in knotts, altitude above sea level, engine RPM, lots of information about the aircrafts direction and such. The other Garmin display had typical map info that was geared toward pilot needs. It even displayed all towers that held radio, tv antennas and such and it had their height. I believe water towers were even displayed.

Before we took off the flight instructor asked if we had any particular direction we wanted to go. I told him what part of town I lived in but if we had enough time I thought we could fly up to Vienna, Illinois. This is where I was raised and my mom and step-dad still live. He said that should be ok. By car this drive is about 30 minutes.

Things I noticed during our ride were

1. the instructor used the pedals to steer the plane on the ground
2. the instructor let me pull the plane off the ground when we hit the proper speed
3. after he got the plane pointed in the proper direction he turned on the auto-pilot
4. we got up to about 2,500 feet and cruised at about 115 knots
5. when we arrived at Vienna we circled my mom's house and turned back toward Paducah
6. our trip took about 10 minutes to get there and 10 minutes back
7. the entire time you could see from Paducah to Vienna if you recognized tall larndmarks

During the flight I talked with the instructor. He told me he was from Kansas and had taken all his flight lessons quickly using a loan. His degree was in some variety of aeronautics. He has been in Paducah since August (about 3 months). My flight at 11am was then 4th flight he had already done that day and he had a total of 8 scheduled this weekend. Wow!

When I was talking with the instructor and another person at the airport, I found out it's not out of the ordinary for someone to take flight lessons over a long period of time. One person he mentioned had been taking lessons for 5 years. The lessons are about $170 each and this covers $140 for the plane and $30 for the instructor. Personally, I thought the $30 / hour for the flight instructor was pretty cheap.

My son didn't say a whole lot after the flight but he really wanted me to take those flight lessons and take him with me. I figure when he talks to his grandparents this coming week he'll have a lot to say about his first plane ride. I told him about how important it was for him to do well in science and math because those were very important when flying planes.

Like anyone, I am always tickled when I get a reply off my website. In the past 2 weeks I've gotten a couple of strange phone calls. But I was glad to have gotten them.

One call was from an insurance agent. She told me a gentleman asked her for an insurance quote on a home he had found on my web site. She called me to obtain some details about the home. Before I learned my web site was involved I told her I didn't have any idea what she was talking about. The home was an hour away from my area of expertise.

I received another call today from a television reporter in the Nashville area. She wanted information about a family that lived in a home in Cadiz, KY. She thought I was the listing agent. She said there was a murder in the home last night, although I can't find anything about it online. I told her it wasn't my listing and she should call the listing agent who was listed right under my name.

I've been working to increase my internet presence over the past few weeks so I hope these calls indicate good progress!