Car auctions featuring repossessed and seized vehicles can get you into a used car for a song - and a little cash

Car auctions are needed in order to allow banks and other financial institutions to quickly and easily dispose of seized, repossessed and other vehicles they are "stuck with" due to failure of payments.

Storage fees and interest charges quickly add up, making these institutions highly motivated to quickly dispose of the vehicles in order to boost their bottom line.

The starting bid on many of these vehicles at car auctions is nowhere near "book value", but at the amount required to pay off the loan and recover the loan balance.

Bank repossessed cars ("repos") come from unfortunate people who, for reasons beyond their control, can no longer afford to make their car payment. They may have lost their job, were demoted or even injured and they are no longer able to make payments to the financial institution that provided the funds to initially purchase the vehicle.

Another source of vehicles for car auctions comes from seized vehicles. No, this doesn't mean that the car seized up on them while they were cruising down the highway. It means that a law enforcement agency (police, drug enforcement, etc.) confiscated the vehicle from a "bad person" that was doing illegal things and got caught. The odds are pretty good that the perpetrator won't need their vehicle any time soon because they're probably "doing time".

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