218 N 15TH ST

CITY OF HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania, 17103

Tax DeedpendingSells Sep 29, 2026 · 3 days ago

View on map ↗

Opening bid

$72,430

Assessed value

$6,500

Land $6,500Improvement $0

Market / AVM

$27,000

Taxes owed

—

Parcel number: 08-019-057
Case number: —
Land use: Residential
Building: —
Acreage: 0.04
Lot size: 1,667 sqft
Year built: —
Owner of record: GATES JAMES R

Property facts enriched via realestateapi · 9/29/2026

Aerial view of 218 N 15TH ST — the parcel

Aerial view of 218 N 15TH ST — what is around it

Site & surroundings

Physical conditions that affect value and rarely appear on a listing.

FEMA flood zone AE — special flood hazard area
1% annual chance flood (100-year), with a published base flood elevation. Insurance mandatory with a federally backed loan. Flood insurance will be required for a federally backed mortgage, which is a permanent cost on any resale and can exceed the payment on a low-value parcel.

Context

13% of homes vacant year-round in Census Tract 907
288 of 2,135 units vacant year-round, around or below the national tract average.
37% owner-occupied
Renters are the majority here. A retail resale is possible but the investor bid is what sets the floor.
Tract median home value $232,100
Self-reported median across the whole tract — context for whether a number is plausible, not a comparable and never a bid input.
Median household income $51,335
Tract median household income. Sets what a local buyer can finance.

Property detail

RealEstateAPI PropertyDetail · Every populated field, as returned · 145 values

Summary(12)

Id	25,055,352
Flood zone	Yes
Free clear	Yes
High equity	Yes
Notice type	FOR
Property type	LAND
Equity percent	100
Flood zone type	X
Estimated value	$27,000
Last update date	2026-09-23 00:00:00 UTC

County records

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

Recorded Document Search ↗search: 08-019-057
Google Maps (parcel / address search) ↗

Dauphin 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: mortgages/judgments typically survive. Judicial: free and clear of most liens after proper notice; analyze federal tax liens separately. Strict RETSL notice compliance required for valid sale.

Quiet title

Common for Upset purchases; often still used after Judicial for insurance comfort.

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.

Dauphin County Tax Claim Bureau ↗

Deal analysis

Your maximum bid

$12,790

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

Opening bid $72,430

Room to bid -$59,640

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 $27,000. 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: $27,000
Selling costs on exitassumed 8.0% of ARV — agent commission plus seller-side closing.: −$2,160
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): −$8,100
Maximum bid: $12,790

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 $72,430.46 is already above your ceiling of $12,790.

AI risk brief

Reads this parcel against DauphinCounty'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.

Site & surroundings

Physical conditions that affect value and rarely appear on a listing.

FEMA flood zone AE — special flood hazard area

1% annual chance flood (100-year), with a published base flood elevation. Insurance mandatory with a federally backed loan. Flood insurance will be required for a federally backed mortgage, which is a permanent cost on any resale and can exceed the payment on a low-value parcel.

Context

13% of homes vacant year-round in Census Tract 907

288 of 2,135 units vacant year-round, around or below the national tract average.

37% owner-occupied

Renters are the majority here. A retail resale is possible but the investor bid is what sets the floor.

Tract median home value $232,100

Self-reported median across the whole tract — context for whether a number is plausible, not a comparable and never a bid input.

Median household income $51,335

Tract median household income. Sets what a local buyer can finance.

25,055,352

Flood zone

Yes

Free clear

Yes

High equity

Yes

Notice type

FOR

Property type

LAND

Equity percent

100

Flood zone type

Estimated value