397 Lafayette Ave

Sharon, Pennsylvania, 16146

Tax DeedpendingSells Sep 15, 2026 · in 3 days

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Opening bid

$35,338

Assessed value

$1,350

Land $1,350Improvement $0

Market / AVM

$45,000

Taxes owed

—

Parcel number: 3 O 57
Case number: —
Land use: Residential
Building: —
Acreage: 0.15
Lot size: 6,750 sqft
Year built: —
Owner of record: John Mcgaughey

Legal description

LOT 32 BUDD ALLOT 397 LAFAYETTE AVE

Property facts enriched via realestateapi · 8/25/2026

Aerial view of 397 Lafayette Ave — the parcel — Aerial imagery from the USGS National Map. Flown on a multi-year cycle — it shows the site as photographed, which may predate clearing, construction or demolition. Not evidence of current condition.

Aerial view of 397 Lafayette Ave — what is around it — Aerial imagery from the USGS National Map. Flown on a multi-year cycle — it shows the site as photographed, which may predate clearing, construction or demolition. Not evidence of current condition.

County records

Official appraiser / assessor — free, always available. Copy the parcel number if the link opens a search page.

Google Maps (parcel / address search) ↗

Mercer County rules

Sale type: Tax Deed
Redemption: None in most counties for upset/judicial sales; limited redemption (90 days) survives in specific home-rule counties (e.g., Philadelphia, in narrow cases)
Return if redeemed: N/A — outright deed transfer in the large majority of counties
Statute: Pennsylvania Real Estate Tax Sale Law, 72 P.S. §5860.101 et seq.

Full county profile →

Historical comps

No historical bucket for PA|Tax Deed

No recorded comps yet for this state/sale type. Run deedpilot-copilot import-history --deep and build-history-index.

Index 2026-08-01 · 87,879 total recorded outcomes

Liens that survive

Upset sale: property typically remains subject to many liens. Judicial sale: designed to free the property of most liens. Federal tax liens can survive either path.

Quiet title

Judicial sale judgments often support marketable title; upset purchasers frequently need judicial sale or quiet title for insurable resale.

Verify before you bid

This record was compiled from the published sale list. Parcels are pulled, redeemed, and re-priced up to the moment of sale. Confirm the lot is still in the sale, and confirm the opening bid, directly with the county.

Mercer County Tax Claim Bureau ↗

Deal analysis

Your maximum bid

$23,950

Do not bid — the numbers do not clear your margin.

Opening bid $35,338

Room to bid -$11,388

Confidence: medium — ARV from a provider market estimate, not comps.

History-guided suggestion

Pass

History + oracle say stay out or wait — do not chase.

History sample

—

Median sold

—

p(redeem) prior

—

No historical bucket for PA|Tax Deed; suggestion uses oracle only.
Oracle says no-bid — suggestion is pass.

Your assumptions

After-repair value (ARV)

Override the derived estimate with real comps

Rehab budget

You cannot inspect before bidding — budget for the worst plausible condition

Known surviving liens

Municipal code enforcement, special assessments, federal tax liens

Target margin — 30%

Required profit as a share of ARV. 30% is a common floor for tax-sale flips.

How that number is built

Provider market estimate of $45,000. This is an as-is valuation, not an after-repair one — enter your own comparable-sales figure if the property needs work.

After-repair value: $45,000
Selling costs on exitassumed 8.0% of ARV — agent commission plus seller-side closing.: −$3,600
Rehabassumed No rehab budget entered — assumed $0. Tax-sale parcels are sold unseen and un-inspected; this is rarely correct.: −$0
Quiet title (required)assumed Midpoint of the typical PA range ($1,500–$5,000, ~4 months).: −$3,250
Deed recording and transferassumed Typical PA recording and deed issuance cost.: −$250
Holding costs (6 months)assumed Taxes, insurance, and securing the property at ~$75/month.: −$450
Surviving liensassumed Assumed $0 — not verified. Municipal code-enforcement liens, special assessments, and federal tax liens can survive the sale.: −$0
Target profit (30% of ARV): −$13,500
Maximum bid: $23,950

Before you bid

Rehab is assumed to be $0. You cannot inspect these properties before bidding — budget for the worst plausible condition.
Surviving liens assumed $0. UPSET SALE vs JUDICIAL SALE is the single most important distinction in Pennsylvania and this row cannot express it. An upset sale (72 P.S. §§ 5860.601-609) conveys subject to existing mortgages, judgments and liens, which are NOT divested; a judicial sale (§§ 5860.610-612) is ordered free and clear. Establish which one a parcel is in before treating survivingLiens as zero.
Pennsylvania county assessments run against base years that can be decades stale, and the spread is extreme — Bucks assesses at about 5.6% of market and Schuylkill at 100%, an 18x range inside one state. The Common Level Ratio is a county MEDIAN published for realty transfer tax equalisation, not a per-parcel appraisal, so deriving ARV from it multiplies any error in that one parcel's assessment by the factor: in Bucks a $50,000 assessment derives an ARV near $893,000. Treat a derived ARV in a high-factor county as a research lead, not a valuation, and get comparable sales before bidding.
PA has 67 counties on a different assessment ratio (42001, 42003, 42005, 42007, 42009, 42011, 42013, 42015, 42017, 42019, 42021, 42023, 42025, 42027, 42029, 42031, 42033, 42035, 42037, 42039, 42041, 42043, 42045, 42047, 42049, 42051, 42053, 42055, 42057, 42059, 42061, 42063, 42065, 42067, 42069, 42071, 42073, 42075, 42077, 42079, 42081, 42083, 42085, 42087, 42089, 42091, 42093, 42095, 42097, 42099, 42101, 42103, 42105, 42107, 42109, 42111, 42113, 42115, 42117, 42119, 42121, 42123, 42125, 42127, 42129, 42131, 42133). No FIPS was supplied, so the statewide ratio was used — pass `fips` if this parcel is in one of them.
The opening bid of $35,337.86 is already above your ceiling of $23,950.

AI risk brief

Reads this parcel against MercerCounty's rules and flags what could go wrong — surviving liens, redemption exposure, title cost, and the facts we don't have. Takes about 35 seconds; the result is saved, so opening this lot again is instant.