How to Find Bank Real Estate Foreclosures
When times are tough, the incidence of foreclosures rises. If so, you may want to take advantage and search foreclosure listings, hoping to get a good buy on a nice house. While it's true that you might find a good buy, it's also true that most foreclosures start out at fair-market value. Most of what you hear about buying houses for pennies on the dollar is just hype. Someone is trying to sell you a "system" or a list of foreclosures. But accessing comprehensive lists of foreclosures is free, if you know where to look, so don't pay for foreclosure lists.
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Instructions
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Subscribe to the Homepath Property Alerts, a free service that notifies subscribers of new foreclosures on a daily basis; set up a subscription for each ZIP code that interests you. You will find the subscription form at Homepath.com, which is the Fannie Mae foreclosure website. All of the properties listed there were financed by banks, and Fannie Mae invested in the mortgages. Because of that, Fannie Mae has to sell them, rather than the bank; they list thousands of foreclosures.
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Visit the website of Freddie Mac, another mortgage investor that sells foreclosures rather than the banks with whom they partner. They also have thousands of foreclosures. You can search by state, city and other criteria.
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Go to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's "HUD Homes" web page, where you will find all available HUD foreclosures. There you can click on a state, and then you will be redirected to an external link, that of the regional office that handles and lists HUD foreclosures. Once there, you will be able to search by city, ZIP code or other criteria. City searches are usually more efficient than ZIP code searches because a given city may include more than one ZIP code.
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Visit Homesales.gov to stay abreast of all government foreclosures, in addition to HUD homes. You can search by state and city. This list includes Rural Housing, Veteran's Administration and other agency foreclosures that were originally financed by banks but were also guaranteed by the United States government.
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Go to the sites of individual banks. Some post their foreclosures online, and others do not because they have outsourced the work of selling their foreclosures to servicers that specialize in REO properties. REO stands for Real Estate Owned, which is the phrase many banks use to refer to foreclosures, so on the bank's website look for the links "Foreclosures" and "REO."
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Consult the classified section of the area newspaper under "Legals" or "Foreclosures" or a related topic. Foreclosures are a matter of public record and as such, notification of foreclosure auctions will appear in the newspaper. These homes are not always vacant, and there is a chance that the owner will redeem the house before the auction takes place.
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Tips & Warnings
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sometimes offer buyer incentives, such as low down payments, new appliances and more. Check their websites.
You may see a house that you have heard is in foreclosure sitting vacant for a long time without a for sale sign. The bank, servicer or agency handling the foreclosure is probably working on legal issues surrounding the foreclosure. They will put it on the market as soon as they can.
Never buy a foreclosure sight unseen. Many have serious problems that are not visible in photographs. If the price is particularly low, there's always a reason.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit house image by Brett Bouwer from Fotolia.com
