Foreclosure Listings
So, now that you have made the decision that the place to invest is in foreclosed properties, you have one more thing to do. You have to locate the appropriate foreclosure homes. There are lots of places to start your search for this kind of property, and I have 2 very general classifications: government foreclosures and reo properties.
There are a variety of types of government foreclosures. Examples range from a wide variety of governmental agencies, from housing to veterans to banking administration agencies, to other more traditional sources, such as Fannie Mae and other quasi-governmental institutions. There is even a governmental agency that is solely responsible for figuring out what to do with property it no longer wants and getting rid of it!
If you're looking for houses that have been through bank foreclosures then check online for listings of REO properties. These are posted by a number of banks. Directories of banks which do this also exist. Otherwise, try finding REO properties through asset management companies. They are employed to help lenders dispose of these assets and will often list such properties on their own websites.
A good investment possibility is homes that are currently in pre-foreclosure situations. Public notices are available at the County Clerk which can be searched by anyone and will be registered at various stages of the foreclosure process. This allows you to find properties that are on their way to foreclosure and you the owners may be willing to sell in order to avoid foreclosure. Keep in mind that in order to make this type of investment you must have a good understanding of how foreclosures work.
When a bank or mortgage company forecloses on a property, they have to make the process public by printing a Notice of Sale in the town paper. By hunting through the relevant sections of your local paper, you can find these notices pretty easily. Make sure that you know exactly what you're looking at with any property that you buy at a trustee sale, though. These properties are often marketed just as they are, and may need extensive repairs or remodeling.
It would also be beneficial to become familiar with the website for the county that is your target area to make use of the resources that it offers for searching for foreclosures in the area. This will be useful for you whether you are looking for pre-foreclosure homes, or foreclosure auctions on the steps of the county courthouse.
As you may notice there various sources of foreclosure homes and I recommend that you explore several sources as opposed to only using one foreclosure database. If you expand to include the listings of a few banks, asset managers and government agencies as well as the county clerk you will have a more varied range of listings to chose from. And this will give you an edge over investors competing with you for properties.
At some point, you may have made the decision to begin dabbling in foreclosure investing, but you haven't yet started since you don't yet have foreclosure properties. Two key groups of listings include government foreclosures and bank owned property, and it is useful to think in terms of these two groups, as there are numerous ways to identify foreclosure properties. A good investment possibility is homes that are currently in pre-foreclosure situations. A step in any foreclosure is that a Notice of Sale has to be placed in the local paper. Look for trustee sales in the section where public notices are in local publications and magazines.
Published April 9th, 2008
Filed in Home Business