A real estate agent and investor in New Hampshire since 2003, Richard Dale-Mesaros often combed through more than a dozen websites and some newspapers around the state to track foreclosure and foreclosure auctions across five counties.
Richard Dale-Mesaros, a Meredith real estate agent and investor, is co-founder of BidPirate.com (Courtesy)
“For me, as an investor, to keep track of 20 or 30 different auctions that I’m tracking at any one time, it would mean I’ve got to sit there twice a week and go through as many as 20 different auctioneers’ website schedules of their upcoming auctions,” said Dale-Mesaros, who operates in Meredith.
More tedious than that was when he would learn, often too late while heading to his destination, that an auction had been canceled after no updates to its listing online. So, he decided to do something about it.
Dale-Mesaros solicited the help of Concord-based web developer Margo Bowie about a year ago to found BidPirate.com, a central hub for foreclosure auction notices in New Hampshire which launched in January.
Though Bowie’s work isn’t in real estate, she says it was evident that Dale-Mesaros had identified a problem with no solution.
“There didn’t seem to be anything out there that was solving this, and it was totally attainable with the skills I have and the knowledge Richard has to put it together and make something in short order,” Bowie said.
For a small fee of $49 per month, the site sources live-updating auction listings showing date and time, contact information for the auction company, and foreclosing attorney and property details like rooms and square footage. Elsewhere on the site, agents and investors can find what Dale-Mesaros calls “due diligence” resources in one place, including registries of deeds, record searches and parcel maps.
The site fills what Dale-Mesaros said was an information gap, somewhat caused by competitive business. He sought real estate information from four providers — CoreLogic, Attom, Data Tree and Batchleads — and found that the companies’ data wasn’t always accurate. Additionally, auctioneers are not required to take home mortgage lenders behind in their payments to court in New Hampshire, according to 603 Legal Aid. This means agents and investors are given shorter notice of potential foreclosure auctions than in other states, Dale-Mesaros said.
Margo Bowie, a Concord web designer, manages product development and data for BidPirate.com as its other co-founder. (Courtesy)
As such, he, Bowie and three other team members manually track updates and edit auction details within BidPirate, often within two hours or less of any changes.
She and Dale-Mesaros have also enlisted three marketing students in the University of New Hampshire’s Peter T. Paul College to manage the promotional side of the business. The students met Dale-Mesaros and Bowie through the college’s Paul Projects program. In the 15-week project, students earn course credits and attain career experience in partnership with a real-world business, according to Peter Masucci, UNH’s principal lecturer in marketing, who facilitates the program and said BidPirate’s trio of students are learning much about real estate in addition to marketing strategy.
A core objective of their work has been to disseminate a research survey to increase brand awareness, ask investors and contractors what value they’re looking for in BidPirate and learn how professionals have previously conducted business in foreclosure auctions, group student Dana Litzelman said.
“One of the interviewees expressed that most of the websites that they’re using are free subscriptions,” Litzelman’s peer Ryan Stultz said. “But he said that if (BidPirate) is going to get him deals and is easier to use, he was definitely willing to pay for that premium.”
The other third of the group, Ashlyn Smith, expressed that working with Dale-Mesaros and Bowie has presented a different scenario than other student groups, with BidPirate launching so recently and being a startup venture.
Just months after its launch, Dale-Mesaros expressed that BidPirate is already aiding his work.
“I was (driving) to an auction and got a text from my partner saying, ‘canceled,’” he said. “I pulled over and went on BidPirate, and looked on our schedule there, and it said, ‘canceled.’” But property professionals don’t have to solely take his word for it. One Seacoast Region agent, who requested anonymity to not jeopardize their business, told NH Business Review that they’re finding value in the site in their work.
“I can go to BidPirate, and if an auction is postponed or canceled, I have time to find out,” the agent said. “It was almost impossible before, going into 15 different websites. So, it’s really helped me save time and organize things.”
