Twenty foreclosed homes in the Ozarks were auctioned off to the highest bidder Tuesday night. Dozens of people filled the Clarion Hotel hoping to buy a home for 40- cents to 60-cents on the dollar. All an interested buyer needed was a government issued I.D., a $25-hundred dollar cashier's check and the ability to pay five percent down.

"I'm looking for a bargain,” Investor Bob Sorensen said. His friend and real estate agent, LeighAnn DuParri, says she was just a long for the ride. It may have been Sorensen’s first foreclosed home auction, but it wasn’t his first rodeo. "I buy and sell cattle," Sorensen said. “I don’t come in with any preconceived notions.” Sorensen and DuParri visited the four to five foreclosed homes they want to buy. "Depending on the property, we'll rent some and fix some up and resell them," Sorensen said.

RE/MAX agent John Heitz said bidders should never buy without an inspection and title search. Heitz says especially at an auction because everything is sold as is. "If you don’t have it inspected you could possibly find a leak, mold, termites, structural damage," Heitz said. Heitz also warns auction frenzy. "When you have people competing, you could wind up paying more than you planned," Heitz said.

Sorensen and DuParri won one of the properties they were after. Other bargain hunters landed a home the auction company said was worth $1.4 million went. It sold for less than half a million. "We are the silver lining in the tragic foreclosure crisis,” REDC Vice-President of Auctions Trent Ferris said. “The foreclosure is done and gone so a house is just sitting vacant. We bring that empty house back."

REDC says they are a fully-licensed and bonded real estate auctioneer. Ferris said they typically sell 80-percent of the properties up for bid at each auction. All of the properties for sale were owned by banks and did not have liens. Each bid winner also had to pay a five-percent buyers premium on top of their winning bid. The premium pays REDC for their services. The company says every sale is final.