Bid4Assets, established in 1999, was the first online real estate auction

Auction

An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...

 website to operate in the United States. Bid4Assets auctions distressed real estate and personal property for private investors and the federal government. It serves the United States Marshals, the U.S. Department of Treasury and several counties throughout the United States. To date, Bid4Assets has sold over 80,000 properties nationwide. The company is based in Silver Spring, Maryland

Silver Spring, Maryland

Silver Spring is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It had a population of 71,452 at the 2010 census, making it the fourth most populous place in Maryland, after Baltimore, Columbia, and Germantown.The urbanized, oldest, and...

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In October, 2010, Bid4Assets hosted one of the largest online real estate auctions in the history of the United States in which over 13,000 properties located in Wayne County, Michigan

Wayne County, Michigan

-History:Wayne County was one of the first counties formed when the Northwest Territory was organized. It was named for the American general "Mad Anthony" Wayne. It originally encompassed the entire area of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, as well as small sections that are now part of northern...

 were auctioned due to unpaid real estate taxes. In 2011, the Wayne County Treasurer netted a record $32 Million from the Bid4Assets online auction of 14,000 tax-foreclosed properties, double the amount collected the previous year.

Notable items sold through Bid4Assets include the presidential yacht, USS Sequoia

USS Sequoia (presidential yacht)

USS Sequoia is a former United States presidential yacht used from Herbert Hoover to Jimmy Carter, who had it sold in 1977. The ship was decommissioned under Roosevelt and lost its "USS" status at that time, but by popular convention is still often used...

, the original Watergate lock, the Beastie Boys

Beastie Boys

Beastie Boys are an American hip hop trio from New York City. The group consists of Mike D who plays the drums, MCA who plays the bass, and Ad-Rock who plays the guitar....

 Grand Royal

Grand Royal

Grand Royal was the Los Angeles, California based vanity record label set up in 1992 by the Beastie Boys in conjunction with Capitol Records after the group left Def Jam Recordings....

 record label, and the Golden Eye Diamond

Golden Eye Diamond

The Golden Eye Diamond is a flawless Canary Yellow diamond, claimed to be the world's largest of its cut and color. It is listed at number four of the top ten notable diamonds. It is believed to come from the Kimberley area of South Africa...

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