Foreclosure

This year I decided to learn more about the foreclosure process and see if I can strike gold with a house that is in foreclosure. The problem is nobody could really teach me about the foreclosure process and people in the real estate industry did not want me to learn about it because that meant no money for them. A couple of people in the mortgage loan industry finally told me that my best bet would be to go down to the courthouse and look at the foreclosure records. Though this is free it is very time consuming and will require more than one trip to the central files room in your local courthouse. Upon finding a house you are interested in you have to go back to the court with the case docket number and ask to look at the file so that you can see exactly what the owner owes on the house and any other liens. Once the home goes to auction there is also the issue of securing a cash deposit for the day of auction just to be eligible to bid.

There was a house I was interested in and it was on the market for $435,000. though the house was assessed at closer to $390,000. The owners refinanced with an ARM loan in Jan. 2006 and now owe $455,000. (Yes I saw all this info in their files at the courthouse.) Nobody bought the house which is very small though in a convenient location. The starting bid at the auction on Wednesday was $400,000.!!? Did the bank (HSBC in case you were wondering) think anyone would really bid that high? The house is worth less than that!! Anyway I am curious to see how low this house will go because banks are not in the business of holding properties and they will not get it off their hands for $400K.