Pershing and Humboldt Counties are the first in Nevada to use an Ebay-type of online service to auction of tax-delinquent properties. The county would historically auction off the properties on the courthouse steps. Pershing County held a four-day online auction on Bid4Assets.com, in June.

"I was a little nervous to begin with because I though that it might hold back our local bidders but they were really good to work with and it was a much more streamlined process than us having to do all of it ourselves," Lacey Donaldson, Pershing County Clerk Treasurer said.

Donaldson says the online auction was successful, generating more than $1 million for Pershing County. It sold 180 properties, which is 78 percent of the listings. That compares to 2018 when it sold 56 percent, raising $286,000.

"It's revenue that the county wouldn't see because of nonpayment of taxes, so getting those back on the role is huge," Donaldson said. "That goes right to the county's general fund. Plus, the other entities that get tax rate like the hospital and the school district. So that's money that they hadn't budgeted for."

"We break down the constraints and help the counties return the vast majority of these properties back on the tax roles and make up for the budget shortfall that supports things like police, roads and schools," Jesse Loomis, Bid4Assets CEO said.

Bid4Assets operates in 85 counties across the United States. Loomis says this type of service is especially beneficial to rural counties because usually there aren't enough local residents to buy the large amount of available property.

"What really surprises me is that 90 percent of the counties in America are still doing this out on the courthouse steps, calling out bids for the people that can be there on that day, locally participating in that auction," Loomis said.

Officials say online sales help because it opens up the bidding to a wider audience. Pershing County's auction had 109 participants from 20 states.

"You can't do that with a live auction," Loomis said. "It's unusual that people are going to take on the geographical constraints of traveling across the U.S. to participate in the auction."

Winning bids ranged from $350 to $50,501. The auction can be a good deal for bidders because the price is not based on the market rate. The minimum price is based on the amount of taxes, penalties and the cost to take them to auction.

"If that's $500 on a 40-acre parcel that's worth $12,000, the county just wants to recoup that $500," Loomis said.

Many of the properties have been in default for more than 15 years. Some of them are located in the Mill City and Rye Patch areas, where developers bought land but did not build anything.

"One development was on the books since the early 2000s," Donaldson said. "The previous treasurer, for whatever reason never took them to sale and we sold all but two of those parcels."

Donaldson says the online auction takes the pressure off her office and says it might be a good ideas for other counties to try.

"They handled the bidders and the money transactions and it brought in a lot of bidders from other places and I think it was successful," Donaldson said. "I would definitely recommend it."

"We're free to the county, we do all the work, we take all the risk, we always get much better results than a live auction does," Loomis said.

Loomis says he is coming back to Nevada in September, when he is hoping to get more counties to use Bid4Assets. Along with selling tax-defaulted properties, the company also sells forfeited property for the Department of Justice and law enforcement agencies. When criminals have their property forfeited, the government auctions off that property.