Foreclosure - Real Estate Foreclosure - Information

Welcome to the property foreclosures page. We are here to provide you with opportunities to buy properties undergoing foreclosures, REO, reposession, bankruptcy foreclosure, etc. You can find out about VA, HUD, FSBO, FHA, foreclosure auctions, and more.

Fore buyers of foreclosure properties they can be an excellent investment, or give home buyers a much more affordable option than traditional properties. Foreclosure properties are not a way to get rich quick, and a foreclosure purchase needs to be approached in an educated, intelligent manner. We provide you with companies that offer foreclosure searches and purchasing opportunities.

This page also has some resources on how to avoid foreclosure on your home. Keep reading...

Three Types of Foreclosure Properties

There are three basic types of foreclosure properties, representing different stages in the foreclosure process: 1) notice-of-default (NOD) and 2) notice of trustee sale (NTS), which are both pre-foreclosure properties; and 3) real-estate-owned (REO), a foreclosure property which has been re-purchased by the bank.

Most of the time buying a pre-foreclosure property from a private homeowner is the best option. You can find these properties by checking ads in newspapers and online, running "I buy properties" ads, or simply asking around your neighborhood to see if any neighbors might be in financial distress. It's important that both the buyer and the seller see the situation as a win-win situation, in order to ensure a smooth process. In this case, the seller is able to get out from under a mortgage without destroying their credit rating, the lender is saved the time and expense of foreclosing on the property, and the buyer gets a below-market price on a home.

Foreclosure auction sales are typically the domain of the professional investor. These properties are formally in default, and sold to the highest bidder at an auction. Buyers are required to be physically present at the auction, and must pay 100% of the sale price in cash, on the spot. Though foreclosure auctions can offer significant savings, they are not for the faint of heart or the uninformed. Unless the buyer is already familiar with a particular property, there is usually little time to examine it. And the buyer will be competing against professional investors-and sometimes the lender-at the auction. In many states, the existing owner can block the auction by posting past due payments, or simply by filing some legal forms granting an extension on the foreclosure process. If this is the route you want to take, do your homework, have plenty of cash handy (co-investors help), have good legal representation, and make sure you save a cushion in time and money to deal with the inevitable complexities and issues.

Once the lender officially reclaims a home, it becomes a real-estate-owned property (REO). While REO properties typically offer more time for evaluation and a more standard bank-managed transaction, their prices are usually very close to full retail market value. REO sales are considered less risky, and this may be a good place to start for the first time foreclosure buyer. REO homes can often be found by simply calling lenders and asking for the REO department. Banks have become very good at putting these properties back on the market quickly through brokers, but it can still pay to get in early (or even arrange with the bank to notify you of REO's ahead of time to get first option on good properties...).