What I Know About Foreclosure

There are a lot of tricky nuaces to buying foreclosures and there are an even greater number of “creative” options available for capitalizing on a foreclosure before it actually happens. A list of some of the things that can trip you up when buying at auction would include: junior liens, tax liens, civil judgements, bankruptcies, title issues, and many other problems. It is difficult, if not impossible to be fully aware of all of these things before you BUY a property at auction, but there are many things you can do to reduce the chances that they will strike YOU.

Firstly, it is important to understand the complete title history of a property. Most people would state here that the only good option is to consult your favorite competent real estate attorney, but since I know many of you won’t do that because of the cost, I will offer my knowledge here. Keep in mind, however, that I am NOT AN ATTORNEY, AND AM IN NO WAY QUALIFIED TO DISPENSE SPECIFIC LEGAL ADVICE. Please be carefull; these are MY rules for myself, not rules that YOU should necessarily follow.

Also, one must be adept at searching basically every public database (or record book) available to you at your local courthouse. If you need training in this, simply ask the clerk or someone who works in the clerk’s office for help. They are paid from your tax dollars and should therefore be willing to help you. Of course, as always, it helps to be respectful if they happen to be busy with something else at the moment.

The best way to avoid all of these issues is to work out deals BEFORE properties actually go to auction. This can be done in several ways, but usually involves contacting the owner(s) of properties that are in default. Once in contact, you may try to “short sell” a property, buy it outright from it’s owner(s), sell it to other investors for a “cut” of the profit, etc. There are more ways than are countable to acheive the goal of creating profit from a bad situation like this. So, instead of trying to cover every which way that you can turn a profit, I’m going to attempt something more complicated here on my site. I’m going to try to teach you how to “see” the profit… to know where it comes from, who is providing it for you, and what you are giving them in return. Because, when it all comes down to it, there’s nothing for free in this world, and foreclosure money is no different. It doesn’t “matterialize” out of thin air, it comes out of someone’s pocket. The sooner you square with that, the better.