Locating Short Sales & Foreclosures

[svrpaul]

From what I'm seeing with working with some investors, some lenders are dumping their properties to get them off of the books ASAP and taking a loss. 30% below current market values on a couple of properties we found built in 2005 and in decent shape. (New carpet and paint and that's about it.)

The thought process is to get it over with, write it off and move on.

[ISellRiverview]

Speaking of short sales & foreclosures, I just read an article in a local realtor magazine about a woman who specializes in short sales & foreclosures. She does over half her business as a short sale/foreclosure specialist and says that the market is sorely in need of experienced realtors who deal in this area. I think its a great idea when the market is slow to specialize in helping distressed buyers. I already put up a page on my site about short sales and I plan on taking some short sale courses so I can better understand the process and hopefully start marketing myself as a realtor who specializes in that area.

[Bob Crain]

I have a client who wants me to focus on finding short sales and foreclosures for him to buy. What is the best way to find these types of properties?

This is what I would suggest.

In your mls you should have a way to set up custom searches. One of the search fields is the remarks. Another is confidnetial remarks.

Add both of those to the custom search you will be setting up.

Place the following terms in there: Bank owned, foreclosure, REO, REO listing.

Then check out who the listing agent are for those listings. If you see a few agents over and over again then you can bet they specialize in these types of listings.

Next, set up a search for those agents listings and have the new listings. Now you will know whenever a new listing hits the market.

P.S. talk your client out of dealing with short sales. Unless they have ever bought one before it will only frustrate them!

[ericbramlett]

P.S. talk your client out of dealing with short sales. Unless they have ever bought one before it will only frustrate them!

I second that!!!

[Bob Crain]

It is amazing how slooooooooooooooooow these banks are to make a decission on the short sales. I have one contract that we sent in almost two months ago.

[ivanrami]

A short sale can take up to 3 months in average... so 2 months is not that bad all.

[svrpaul]

Short sales are not worth the time and headaches for buyers when there are already so many good deals going on.