A government seized property auction generally presents an opportunity to buy all types of confiscated property at a discount.

Seized property auctions generally come about as a result of criminal seizures, tax seizures, customs seizures, or from the confiscation of other illegally-gotten gains.

With criminal seizure auctions, for example, merchandise is sold from when a drug dealer's or trafficker's home is raided by authorities, and his/her possessions are confiscated because they were obtained with money from illegal activities. With tax seizure auctions, for example, the IRS finds an individual did not pay required taxes, and seizes that person's possessions, (such as cars, jewelry, and real estate) and then sells them with the intent to sell them to satisfy outstanding tax liability. Customs seizure auctions sell merchandise that came from companies that tried to smuggle merchandise into the country without paying import duties, or even from people that failed to declare their merchandise properly when returning from a foreign vacation. In all these instances, property is seized (and this could be seized cars, seized real estate, seized jewelry), and then sold at a government auction.

Then, there are also, police seizures of stolen property that is not claimed by the rightful owner, and local sheriff's sale of foreclosed real estate seized and sold by the lender.

In most circumstances, these seized property sales take place via an auction, and, because the government obtained the items (like cars, jewelry, real estate, electronics) for free and it doesn't have a traditional profit motive, at the auction, it will typically sell the merchandise to the highest bidder (for whatever price it can get).

If you are the highest bidder, and if the highest bid is less than the market price of the item or property you are buying, then you can buy lots of stuff at a seized property auction at a discount.

Seized property auctions are conducted by the federal government, and by state and local governments and police. They work just like any other auction. And listings for various seized property auctions -- both live auctions and online auctions -- can be found at GovernmentAuctions.org, which is an excellent starting place.

government seized property auctions