Why I Built a Tool to Track 12,000+ European Court Auctions

Why I Built a Tool to Track 12,000+ European Court Auctions

Six months ago, I noticed something strange.

In Spain, Portugal, and Germany, courts were selling seized real estate — apartments, commercial properties, entire buildings — at discounts of 20–50% below market value. These weren't obscure corners of the internet. They were official government auction portals, fully public.

The problem? Each country had its own portal. Different formats, different languages, different search interfaces. Finding a deal meant checking five platforms daily, translating legalese, and hoping you caught the listing before it expired.

So I built CourtBid.

It monitors 12,000+ active judicial auctions across 6 EU countries — Spain, Bulgaria, Romania, Austria, Slovenia, Hungary — and surfaces the ones worth looking at. One platform, one language, daily alerts.

What I learned building it:

Most "investment opportunities" in real estate require either massive capital or insider knowledge. Judicial auctions break that rule. The discounts are real. The process is public. The barrier was information — not access.

The tool is live at courtbid.eu. Still early, still rough around the edges. But it's already tracking €2B+ in listed assets across Europe.

If you're interested in proptech, European real estate, or just how judicial systems work as an accidental marketplace — this newsletter is where I'll think out loud about it.