Buying A Home
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Foreclosures?

I keep hearing how it is a buyers market and that there are so many foreclosed homes on the market, yet I never come across any on the websites. How do you go about looking into foreclosures? Is it some type of secret, inside deal I need to know about? Any info would be appreciated. TIA...
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Re: Foreclosures?

  • They're definitely out there, in some markets more than others. Many listings don't say "Foreclosure" on the top in bold, but if you look under "REO property" they will say "Yes." They're listed on the MLS, just like all other sales.

    That said, there are many, many more bank-owned homes that are still being held by the banks, and continue to be gradually released. That's one big part of the theory that the market will stay at a low for quite some time.

  • image=Jewel=:

    They're definitely out there, in some markets more than others. Many listings don't say "Foreclosure" on the top in bold, but if you look under "REO property" they will say "Yes." They're listed on the MLS, just like all other sales.

    That said, there are many, many more bank-owned homes that are still being held by the banks, and continue to be gradually released. That's one big part of the theory that the market will stay at a low for quite some time.

    How do you go about finding out which ones are bank owned or do you have to wait until they are released to the market? 

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  • They are listed on the MLS.  In my area it seems one agent lists all the foreclosures.  So if you see her name, odds are its a foreclosure.  Also I think Homepath.com lists foreclosures that you can search by state/county.
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  • imageMrsDe2008:
    image=Jewel=:

    They're definitely out there, in some markets more than others. Many listings don't say "Foreclosure" on the top in bold, but if you look under "REO property" they will say "Yes." They're listed on the MLS, just like all other sales.

    That said, there are many, many more bank-owned homes that are still being held by the banks, and continue to be gradually released. That's one big part of the theory that the market will stay at a low for quite some time.

    How do you go about finding out which ones are bank owned or do you have to wait until they are released to the market? 

    There's a way, but I'm not sure that it's available to the average person (I don't know how to do this, but my husband can do it at work). You'd need to look up the deed to a specific property, and find out who holds the mortgage. Then search for that property on the MLS to find out if it's listed. If the bank holds the mortgage, and it is not listed on the MLS, this is the type of property I'm referring to. There's no database to seach for REOs that have not yet been released. There's not much point in it, anyway, because there's nothing you can do until the property is released for sale. It could be months or years until that happens, with no way of predicting.

  • There are a few websites out there (some free, some not- which may seem like a scam, but there two I know are legit).

     Free:  Homepath. These are bank owned and were backed by Fannie Mae. I believe each city or at least state has these and I signed up to be on a daily mailing list (based on county or city).  We are about to close on a house in 2 days we found on Homepath. The upside is the minimum you need to put down (as little as 3%). We ended using a conventional loan in the end, but it's great for many reasons.  www.homepath.com 

    I signed up for Foreclosures.com and had to pay $1 for a 7-day trial; if you did not cancel within that 7 days, you were billed x for that week or month?

    The other is Realtytrac: www.realtytrac.com 

     Good luck!

    image
  • We've looked at a lot of foreclosures and HUD properties. They were all listed on the real estate sites that show all house listings (as opposed to only listings with their agency) Also, you can ask banks for a list of foreclosed properties that they own. You can always talk to your real estate agent too. When we were looking at short sales, foreclosures and HUD properties, I was very surprised at all the information our real estate agent was able to provide to us about the specific properties as well. I'm very glad I had her help and knowledge dealing with those properties and would highly suggest anyone else do the same if they've never dealt with bank/gov't owned properties before.
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