Brian and Lisa Blankenmyer spent Thanksgiving in a home they no longer own.
Their modest three-bedroom house on Farmdale Road in Mount Joy was sold at the last Lancaster County Sheriff's Sale of the year Wednesday afternoon.
Now they're waiting for an eviction notice. Then they have to find somewhere else to live.
"Everything's just getting out of hand," said Blankenmyer, 41, who lives in the house with his wife, a teenage son and a newly-married daughter and her husband.
"It's kind of a great big nightmare right now."
The Blankenmyers' home was one of 36 sold during the year's sixth Sheriff's Sale. All are homes whose owners no longer could make mortgage payments.
About 75 people attended the sale in one of the austere old courtrooms in the Lancaster County Courthouse. They didn't say much and they didn't bid much.
The last sale brought the total of homes auctioned this year to 312, slightly more than the 303 sold last year.
But that relatively flat rate may be deceptive. Foreclosure filings — bank notices that often lead to home sales — have increased this year. They are rising toward a record of more than 1,100.
That may mean more sheriff's sales next year.
But while foreclosure notices here are being filed at a 28 percent increase over last year, nationally they are up 71 percent and statewide 73 percent.
Not that it's any solace to the Blankenmyers, but Lancastrians are not losing their homes at anywhere near the rate of residents in many parts of the country.
"Lancaster County is a little more conservative," said the county's Chief Deputy Sheriff Mark Reese. "It looks like the banks and mortgage holders are working more with people here."
Chris Demko, a Fulton Bank vice president who specializes in mortgage-related concerns, agrees with that.
"We have conservative borrowers and we tend to have conservative lenders," he said. "It's a community thing."
Demko believes more customers probably are taking advantage of Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency assistance and "banks themselves do try to work with people on payment plans or modifications."
SHERIFF'S SALE OF COUNTY HOMES• This year, 312 homes have been auctioned by Sheriff's Sale, up from 303 last year.• Foreclosure notices in the county are up 28%, approaching a record 1,100.• Across state, foreclosures are up 73%, and nationally, they're up 71%.
Banks don't really want to own homes, so they do all they can to forestall foreclosure. Ordinarily, a homeowner must miss three mortgage payments before a bank issues a notice of loan default.
From the formal foreclosure filing to the final sale may take months or more than a year as banks and homeowners bargain.
The Blankenmyers filed for bankruptcy in February 2007. That stabilized their situation for a while, but last summer Lisa Blankenmyer lost her job and the escalating price of gas and food added to the family's financial distress.
Brian Blankenmyer earns $14 an hour cleaning residue corn syrup out of truck trailers. Lisa has a new part-time job. But Brian said that's not enough to feed his family and pay the mortgage.
They are months behind on payments.
"The bank said they want $2,000 or they'd sell the house," Blankenmyer said Wednesday. "If we had $2,000, we wouldn't be going through all this."
Their home on Farmdale Road was sold mid-way through Wednesday's auction.
Reese announced that bidding had to begin at the "upset" or "reserve" price of $121,600 and everyone in the room remained silent. So the property was sold to the mortgage-holding bank, Wells Fargo, for $3,772.94.
That's the price that the bank paid for listing the property at the sheriff's sale. The sheriff's office gets that money "for costs only" and the bank gets the house.
Now Wells Fargo will evict the Blankenmyers and try to sell their house another way.
Few of the other 35 homes sold Wednesday went for the reserve price or more. Most sold rapidly at cost. Many are located in Lancaster City.
The only spirited bidding was for a house in Leola listed at $12,000. It eventually sold for $16,000.
The priciest house, on Gooseneck Drive in Manheim Township, was listed at $824,571. It sold at cost.
Two attorneys, on behalf of banks they represented, provided most of the price details at the auction. Many of the other members of the audience were investors.
"Usually the same real estate investors show up every time," Reese observed. "They're just here to flip houses (make repairs and resell at a profit)."
What ultimately becomes of the home the Blankenmyers bought for $86,000 and have lived in for nearly five years is no longer their concern.
"We'll be looking for a big box somewhere or a nice quiet overpass," said Brian Blankenmyer. He laughed, but his laughter had an edge to it.
"No, seriously," he said, "we have places we can go."
Staff writer Jack Brubaker can be reached at jbrubaker@LNPnews.com or 291-8781. 
