This is something that Jeff (s.o.) and I go to every year religiously, and needless to say, I have noticed a trend, and ergo want to complain about it.

Here's the abridged version: There seems to be a core group of people who buy several properties here in the city every year, and then afterwards, the properties remain vacant and just as unkempt as they were before the sale. This core group of buyers hail mostly from Toronto and NYC. There was an audible groan from the crowd when the new Landlord Licensing Law was discussed.

I am personally all for this law, and the sole reason is what I saw over the last few years. In fact, I think it should be stricter still. I sat through the auction harboring a ever-deepening resentment for these buyers (slum lords) who snap up these houses dirt-cheap, leave and laugh all the way to the bank.

Yes, great, someone is buying the houses and increasing the tax role, BUT the city, in selling to the same absentee landlords also seems to be perpetuating the climate of blight in a BIG way.

Should this be the main objective to this auction? The city really seems to be heading in the right direction, so why should the auction be set up in such a way that we lose a turn and go back three spaces?

It just doesn't make sense to me...