Foreclosure Homes: Find a Bargain Today
Once you’ve decided to start investing in foreclosures, you still have one big step left to handle. You must find the right foreclosures. There are numerous sources of foreclosures and I find it helpful to divide the sources into two broad categories: government foreclosures and bank owned property.
Within the category of government foreclosures you can consider quite a many different sources. These include va foreclosures from the Department of Veterans Affairs, hud foreclosures from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Office of Property Disposal at the General Services Administration, the Department of Treasury, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Marshals Service, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and also Fannie Mae.
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.
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. You are at an advantage if you know about the properties before they are at this step in the proceeding. If you make a purchase at a trustee sale, be sure to do your homework, as the properties as sold “as-is, where-is.”
A good use of your time is to get familiar with the website in the area that is the focus of your search, in order to see what is available in the way of foreclosure research. This data is of use if you want to get the land before the actual foreclosure, or if you prefer to bid at a foreclosure auction.
So you can see there are many different sources of foreclosures and I encourage you to use multiple sources rather than just subscribing with one online foreclosure database. If you are reviewing the inventories of a few banks, asset managers, several government departments and the county clerk you will have a larger range of properties to choose from. And this will obviously give you a big advantage over other investors.
As you may have noticed there are various sources of foreclosure listings. I recommend that you explore several sources as opposed to only using one foreclosure database. Two key groups of listings include government foreclosures and bank owned homes. 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 listings, or foreclosure auctions on the steps of the county courthouse.
- David E. Williams