This repository contains data and scripts related to tax auctions and foreclosures in the Kansas City area from 2011 to the present. Legal Aid of Western Missouri and CodeForKC, working together, culled some of the early data from PDF records of the auctions. More recently, the data has become available in spreadsheet form.
The raw data contains parcel numbers but not addresses. By merging the data with address records from CodeForKC's AddressApi project, we were able to map tax auction locations.
Overlaying the tax auctions onto a map of Kansas City with census data on per capita income (at the block group level) shows the strong correlation between low income levels and tax delinquincies leading to the eventual loss of the property through foreclosure and auction.
Properties that find no buyers who meet the minimum bid requirements are transferred to either the Land Bank of Kansas City or, if unincorporated, to the Land Trust of Jackson County. The map belows shows properties transferred to the Land Bank of Kansas City in 2017.
Superimposing both the sold and unsold properties from the 2017 auction on the same map yields the following:
