Pennsylvania tax sale properties, straight from county records. Last refreshed Oct 22, 2026. Auction dates and opening bids can change at the county. Check the county link on a listing before you bid.
Pennsylvania sells the actual property deed at auction. The winning bidder receives ownership of the property (subject to certain surviving liens and title clearing requirements).
Redemption Period
No redemption
Outside Philadelphia and Allegheny County, the county Tax Claim Bureau sells at an upset sale, then a judicial sale, then out of a repository of unsold property, and there is no redemption after any of those sales (72 P.S. 5860.501(c)). Philadelphia and Allegheny County (including Pittsburgh) sell tax-delinquent property at sheriff's sales instead, where an occupied home can be redeemed after the sale (53 P.S. 7293).
Exception: at a sheriff's sale on a tax or municipal claim (Philadelphia, Allegheny County including Pittsburgh, and municipal-claim sales elsewhere) a home continuously occupied as a residence for 90 days before the sale can be redeemed for 9 months after the sheriff's deed is acknowledged, or 3 months in Allegheny County (53 P.S. 7293). Vacant property cannot be redeemed.
Avg Property Tax Rate
1.58%
Above the national average (1.1%). Higher tax rates mean larger opening bids and lien amounts.
Homestead Rules
Special Rules Apply
Homestead exclusion varies by school district.
Words used on this page
Redemption period
A window after the sale when the old owner can pay up and take the property back.
Homestead exemption
A tax break on an owner's main home. It changes what the minimum bid includes.
Opening bid
Where bidding starts. It is not a price or a value. Often it is just the tax owed.
Tax deed
The county sells the property itself. The winner owns it.
Before you bid in Pennsylvania
What can survive the sale and become yours
IRS federal tax liens
City/municipal liens
Water/sewer liens
Other things to check
Pennsylvania's Tax Claim Bureau sales come in stages: an upset sale leaves the mortgage and any recorded lien not paid from the upset price on the property; a judicial sale and a repository sale clear them, except a separately taxed ground rent.
Repository sales need every taxing district's consent and can take weeks.
Philadelphia and Allegheny County sell through sheriff's sales under a different law, the Municipal Claims and Tax Liens Act.
High property tax rates mean large opening bids.
How we rate these
Every listing says one of four things. Next to it is how many facts we hold
for it, and what that much evidence is good enough for.
Worth a look
We hold the four basics (what is being sold, when, for how much, and what the property is) and nothing we hold argues against it. A claim about our record, not a promise about the property.
Needs review
We hold the basics, but a named finding wants a human first: a possible lien under the owner's name, a flood or environmental record, no mapped public road, a property check that fired, an opening bid at or above the value we hold for the parcel, or a sale the county reports as postponed.
Screened out
We hold positive evidence of a problem: recorded debt or an IRS lien that survives the sale, a lot too small to be a real parcel, a sale the county reports as over, or a sale date already past. The card names it.
Not enough data yet
One of the four basics is missing. This is not a bad rating: missing data can never produce a negative verdict.
N of 12 facts on file
How many of the 12 facts we track for this parcel we actually hold: sale kind, auction date, entry price, property class, value, lot size, living area, legal description, road access, title search, condition, sale terms. The same count on the board, the deal page and in Flexy. Hover the bar on any card to see which are still missing.
One number cannot say both how good a parcel looks and how much we actually know
about it, and a low number reads as a verdict. So we do not print one.
“Not enough data yet” is not a judgement about the property.
Pennsylvania is a tax deed state. Outside Philadelphia and Allegheny County, the county Tax Claim Bureau sells at an upset sale, then a judicial sale, then out of a repository of unsold property, and there is no redemption after any of those sales (72 P.S. 5860.501(c)). Philadelphia and Allegheny County (including Pittsburgh) sell tax-delinquent property at sheriff's sales instead, where an occupied home can be redeemed after the sale (53 P.S. 7293).
Pennsylvania has no post-sale redemption period for most tax sales: once the sale is final, the original owner cannot reclaim the property. Exception: at a sheriff's sale on a tax or municipal claim (Philadelphia, Allegheny County including Pittsburgh, and municipal-claim sales elsewhere) a home continuously occupied as a residence for 90 days before the sale can be redeemed for 9 months after the sheriff's deed is acknowledged, or 3 months in Allegheny County (53 P.S. 7293). Vacant property cannot be redeemed.
DeedFlex aggregates Pennsylvania tax sale listings from county auction platforms and gives each property a plain-English verdict: Worth a look, Needs review, Screened out, or Not enough data yet. Next to it is how far the research has got on it. Start with Pro ($59/mo, billed monthly) to browse all available Pennsylvania properties with full deal analysis.
Key risks include: IRS federal tax liens, City/municipal liens, Water/sewer liens. PA's Tax Claim Bureau sales come in stages: an upset sale leaves the mortgage and any recorded lien not paid from the upset price on the property; a judicial sale and a repository sale clear them, except a separately taxed ground rent. Repository sales need every taxing district's consent and can take weeks. Philadelphia and Allegheny County sell through sheriff's sales under a different law, the Municipal Claims and Tax Liens Act. High property tax rates mean large opening bids.
Opening bids vary widely by county and property. Pennsylvania has an average property tax rate of 1.58%, which influences opening bid amounts. DeedFlex shows the opening bid for every listed property. Where we hold a market value we can stand behind, we show it; where we do not, we say so rather than print a number we cannot support.
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