Saturday, April 08, 2006

What's The Best Method of Proespecting for Foreclosure Homes?

Foreclosure Prospecting

One of the readers asked me the best way I knew of for prospecting and finding of foreclosure homes.

As you know, I am a proponent of free services and in fact in one of my earlier posts in this blog, I shoed how I used a free service called Craigslist to find a beach front foreclosure. I also use Yahoo Real Estate to do some prelimnary investigating.

Believe or not, the newspapers and Real Estate Agents remain and have always been my best sources of finding below market homes as well as pre-foreclosed homes!

The fact of the matter is, there are about a dozen solid ways you can conduct your foreclosure treasure hunt and have a prospective list ready to go within 48 hours and be in escrow within 7 days. I'll list a few here:

1- Real Estate Agents
2- Local Foreclosure Hot Sheets
3- Craigslist Real Estate Listing
4- Yahoo Real Estate
5- FHA and VA Foreclosed home website
6- News Papers
7- Free Online Foreclosure Listings
8- County Records Notice of Default and Notice of Sale Listings
9- Local Bank's REO listing department

and many more...
Word of caution. If you are going to wotk with a foreclosure agent (a Real Estate Agent specializing in foreclosures) be sure to have all your ducks in a rowe and have the financing in place or at least a pre-qual letter from the lender stating that you've been pre-approved for a loan.

Foreclosre market is very competetive and you want to be ready when the deal presents itself.

Good luck and happy investing

filed under: foreclosure investing

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Foreclosure Rates are Expected To Hit All Time High

Foreclosure Investing

Reading the pulse of the market, I am getting the sense that I am not alone in the Foreclosure Doomsday theory.

I have been stating that a large (VERY LARGE) of Foreclosed Homes are about to hit the market.

Evidence and stats are mounting as Stated are reporting unusually high forcloures and deliquencies.

A great article by Tom Jandt goes into details of why this is closer to reality than most think.
Here is a snippet of his article

"I believe America will have the largest foreclosure rate in history over the next 10 years and the real estate crash in the United States will make the stock market "Dotcom Crash" of 2000-2001 look like a blip on the screen. Ironically, I believe this will make the stock market go back up and even make all time highs."
So the wise investor should get ready and look for the best foreclosed property in the coming months.

filed under: foreclosure investing

Monday, April 03, 2006

Amazing Story Of My Friend's House in Foreclosure

An Amazing Foreclosure Story

OK. This blew my mind. I was speaking with my friend and the conversation turned to his home.

A few short years ago, he purchased a HUD home for $117,000 in Palmdale Lancaster Area of Los Angeles. He barely made the payments and got by...

His house was recently appraised for $430,000 - WOW
This guy never made more than $2000 a month in his life and now is sitting on over $300,000 in equity in his house.

Or that's what I thought.
His house is in foreclosure and the bank has given him 90 day notice!
Unreal.

He has borrowed his way to the top.. except this top is the bottom.
How can someone blow through $300,000 in equity and end up in foreclosure proceedings?

By borrowing and refinancing the house over and over.
And what do you do with all that money? Pay your mortagage payments and buy lots of BIG toys.... And at the end, he ended up in foreclosure.

One of the biggest reasons for being in foreclosure is the greed and refinacing of the fast equity so many people have enjoyed over the last few years.

My advise to him was to try to restructure the loan with the bank and get some time to get his life in order. His loans now exceed his property value and a foreclosure will be the only option left for the lien holders.

There is alot to be learned from this story.






foreclosure investing