159 EMAUS ST

MIDDLETOWN BORO, Pennsylvania, 17057

Tax DeedpendingSells Sep 29, 2026 · 3 days ago

View on map ↗

Opening bid

$9,595

Assessed value

$67,300

Land $17,500Improvement $49,800

Market / AVM

$222,000

Taxes owed

—

Parcel number: 41-011-005
Case number: —
Land use: Residential
Beds / baths: 5 bd · 1 ba
Building: 2,036 sqft
Acreage: 0.05
Lot size: 2,181 sqft
Year built: 1900
Owner of record: PETERS KELLY L

Property facts enriched via realestateapi · 9/29/2026

Aerial view of 159 EMAUS ST — the parcel

Aerial view of 159 EMAUS ST — what is around it

Site & surroundings

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

31% owner-occupied
Predominantly renter-occupied tract — the resale pool leans investor, which caps price at what the rent supports.

Context

Elevation 307 ft
Ground elevation at the parcel. Compare with the FEMA base flood elevation where one is published.
FEMA flood zone X
Outside the 1% annual chance floodplain.
4% of homes vacant year-round in Census Tract 238
93 of 2,218 units vacant year-round, around or below the national tract average.
Tract median home value $154,600
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 $54,311
Tract median household income. Sets what a local buyer can finance.

Property detail

RealEstateAPI PropertyDetail · Every populated field, as returned · 205 values

Summary(20)

Id	152,921,490
Beds	5
Baths	1
Equity	$200,000
Flood zone	Yes
High equity	Yes
Last sale date	2018-03-22
Property type	SFR
Equity percent	94
Flood zone type	X

County records

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

Recorded Document Search ↗search: 41-011-005
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

$132,142

Walk away above this. Projected profit at the ceiling: $66,600 (30% of ARV).

Opening bid $9,595

Room to bid $122,547

Confidence: medium — ARV from a provider market estimate, not comps.

History-guided suggestion

$53,328

Under max by $78,814

≤ oracle maxBid

Co-pilot target using recorded auction history. Never above your maximum bid.

History sample

—

Median sold

—

p(redeem) prior

—

No historical bucket for PA|Tax Deed; suggestion uses oracle only.

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 $222,000. 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: $222,000
Selling costs on exitassumed 8.0% of ARV — agent commission plus seller-side closing.: −$17,760
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 ~$333/month.: −$1,998
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): −$66,600
Maximum bid: $132,142

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.

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.

31% owner-occupied

Predominantly renter-occupied tract — the resale pool leans investor, which caps price at what the rent supports.

Context

Elevation 307 ft

Ground elevation at the parcel. Compare with the FEMA base flood elevation where one is published.

FEMA flood zone X

Outside the 1% annual chance floodplain.

4% of homes vacant year-round in Census Tract 238

93 of 2,218 units vacant year-round, around or below the national tract average.

Tract median home value $154,600

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 $54,311

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

152,921,490

Beds

Baths

Equity

$200,000

Flood zone

Yes

High equity

Yes

Last sale date

2018-03-22

Property type

SFR

Equity percent

Flood zone type