OBSERVER Photo by Natasha Matteliano The Chautauqua County Land Bank Corp. has made a $20,000 profit on the sale of 61 Point Drive North in Dunkirk.

It didn’t go as planned for the Chautauqua County Land Bank Corp., but a nice profit was still made on the sale of a property in Dunkirk.

The land bank board held its regular meeting last week and approved the sale of 61 Point Drive North in Dunkirk. Gina Paradis, land bank executive director, said there were six proposals submitted to the land bank to purchase the property.

The land bank sold the house to a woman who plans to retire in October and will move back to Dunkirk to live year-round to be near her sister.

Paradis said land bank officials originally purchased the real estate owned, also known as an REO, property with the hopes that they would hire a contractor to renovate the property. After the renovations, land bank officials were then planning to put the property on the market and try to turn an overall profit that would be greater than their normal Rehab For Sale program.

Since the creation of the county land bank, the Rehab For Sale program procedure is for the board to approve a proposal from other people to renovate a house. During the July meeting of the land bank, Paradis said the idea this time was for the land bank to renovate the property to see if more of a profit could be made than by selling the house prior to it be rehabilitated.

Paradis said last month the land bank board decided that because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the cost of construction materials has increased significantly because there is a limited supply, which has made rehabilitating a house more expensive than in the past. Also on Wednesday, Paradis said many contractors are very busy because of the moratorium on doing construction projects earlier this year because of the pandemic and they would have to wait awhile before someone would be available to renovate the house. She added that is why the board decided to market the house as they typically do through the Rehab For Sale program.

Paradis said land bank officials had the house appraised, which was valued at $65,000. During the discussion of the proposals for the house, land bank officials didn’t use names to keep the confidentiality of those who submitted a proposal. The board members also didn’t discuss the amount of money that was proposed by the bid that was selected. However, later in the meeting, a board member mentioned that the land bank made $20,000 on their investment in the property and asked why the land bank doesn’t buy more REOs.

Paradis said because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the cost of REO properties have increased significantly because there are no foreclosures.

“It’s driven the price of REOs right up,” Paradis said. “We don’t know if we will make the same profit with other properties.”

In other business, Paradis said there will be no Chautauqua County Tax Foreclosure Auction this year. She said land bank officials will be preparing for one next year, with the expectation there will be more foreclosures available if the state’s moratorium on foreclosures has ended by June 2021.

Earlier this month during a special meeting of the Chautauqua County Legislature, the group unanimously agreed to extend the 2020 tax foreclosure redemption date from Aug. 7 of this year to April 15, 2021.

During the meeting Mark Geise was approved to be the new vice chairman of the board. There was a vacancy for the vice chair position after Diane Hannum was named the new chairwoman during a special meeting last month. Hannum replaced Jim Caflisch, who resigned the position after his retirement as the Chautauqua County Real Property Tax director.