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A trustee does not make change, and you will not know the winning figure until the bidding stops. Enter your maximum bid and this gives you the cashier’s checks to order — one for the opening amount, then checks that double — so you can pay any winning bid up to your maximum, plus what your state’s code says about paying.
The most you will pay. $250,000 or 250k both work.
From the notice or the trustee's sale line.
Adds the payment terms its code sets.
Enter your maximum bid. You will get the cashier’s checks to order the day before the sale, and which of them to hand over for any winning bid.
With checks of $1,000, $2,000, $4,000 and $8,000 you can hand over any whole thousand from $1,000 to $15,000 — the same reason ten binary digits count to 1,023. Put one check for the opening bid underneath, and the doubling checks cover everything between it and your ceiling. The last check is trimmed so the set totals your maximum exactly: you never carry more than you decided to spend.
Worked through: a $180,000 opening bid and a $250,000 ceiling, in $1,000 steps, is 8 checks — $180,000, $32,000, $16,000, $8,000, $7,000, $4,000, $2,000, $1,000. A winning bid of $213,000 is the $180,000 check plus $32,000 and $1,000.
Not sure what your maximum should be? The foreclosure auction max bid calculator works it back from the resale price. The foreclosure auction cash flow calculator works one back from the rent, and the foreclosure auction BRRRR calculator from the refinance. Each sends its number here.
The state terms come from the same register as our trustee sale laws by state, quoted from each legislature’s own site. For the rest of the process — registering, the auction itself, and what happens after — see how to buy at a trustee sale.
Enough to pay any winning bid between the opening figure and your maximum, because the trustee will not make change. One check for the opening amount plus checks that double — $1,000, $2,000, $4,000 and so on — does it with the fewest pieces of paper: a $180,000 opening bid and a $250,000 ceiling takes 8 checks ($180,000, $32,000, $16,000, $8,000, $7,000, $4,000, $2,000, $1,000).
It depends on the state. In California the trustee can require bidders to show, before bidding, that they can deposit the full amount of the final bid. Washington requires the entire bid from anyone but the lender. Arizona requires a $10,000 deposit to bid and the balance by 5 p.m. the next business day. Where the code is silent, the notice sets the terms.
Ask the trustee named in the notice; its sale line will say. Many bidders make the checks payable to themselves and endorse them to the trustee at the sale, so an unused check can be deposited back into their own account — but confirm the trustee accepts that before ordering them.
An unused check is yours; deposit it back. Because the plan covers a bid to within one step, the checks you hand over can exceed the winning bid by less than that step. How the trustee returns the difference is its own practice, so ask before the sale.
The checks are the easy part.
An account opens the upcoming trustee sales in every county we cover, with the unpaid balance, the trustee's sale line and the parcel number on each record. Filter by county and date, export the list, and get an email when a new sale is noticed.
Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial. The tools stay free.
Investors and flippers deciding what to bid
Foreclosure auction max bid calculator
Enter the after-repair value and your costs; get the most you can bid at a trustee sale and still make your profit, with the 70% rule beside it and the state's deposit and finality rules applied.
Investors who will rent the house they win
Foreclosure auction cash flow calculator
Enter the rent and your costs; get the most you can bid at a trustee sale and still hit your cap rate and cash-on-cash return, with the months before a tenant counted in the first year.
Investors who buy at auction and refinance
Foreclosure auction BRRRR calculator
Enter the bid, the repaired value and the rent; see how much cash a refinance returns, whether the rent or the value sizes the loan, and the highest bid that still gets your cash back.
Homeowners, their lawyers and housing counselors
Trustee sale deadline calculator
Enter a state and a sale date; get every statutory deadline as a calendar date — reinstatement, notice, publication, finality — each with the sentence of law it comes from.
Anyone holding a notice — owners, heirs, investors
Notice of trustee's sale decoder
Paste a notice of trustee's sale and get it back in plain English: when and where the auction is, who is running it, what is owed, and the deadlines that follow.
The most you will pay. $250,000 or 250k both work.
From the notice or the trustee's sale line.
Adds the payment terms its code sets.
Covers every bid from $1,000 to $103,900, to within $1,000
Before sale day — practice, not law