Foreclosure Auctions

First off, auctions are not for newbees. Second, in most cases you have to have the cash available as soon as you win the bidding (foreclosure auctions) You can use a title company to run an O and E on the property. You usually have around 3 days prior to the auction to do due diligence. Most times there is no access to the property. You can only walk around the outside only.
Again, this is a strategy for experienced investors that have liquid cash on hand.

Michael

Thank you for your input. I have been investing in real estate for almost 15 years, sometimes more aggressively than other times. I am always looking for different strategies to acquire properties. Fortunately, where I live the county has a website where they post auction schedules a week or two in advance. I know it's risky purchasing a property without inspections which is why I had steered away from it in the past, but I wanted to know if there were any "insider tricks" that I could pick up in this forum. Thanks again for your reply.

You can run a title search for around $100. This will reveal any additional liens against the property.

Also, look into see if your area has a redemption period. If so, then you are prohibited from doing anything with the property until the time period expires which gives the original owner time to purchase back the property. This can be upwards of 12 months in some states. Leaving you to pay taxes and insurance while the owner lives there "free."

Jill & I have bought dozens of properties at auctions; I would strongly recommend not to buy through county auctions, because any liens, judgments or
(especially here in Florida)open permits can be attached to the property. Even if they are not recorded in that county, it can come back & bite you. Plus, there can be occupants, which you would have to evict, which can be costly & take much time, by then they have destroyed the property. Also the judgment amounts are usually way more than the property is worth.
I would recommend auction.com or Hudson & Marshall; these properties have gone through the foreclosure process, have been listed with real estate brokers, & have not sold, so the bank sends them to auction. The great thing is they are usually vacant, have a lock box so a REA can get you in to preview the property, & BEST of ALL come LIEN FREE at closing !

Great information Gary and Jill!

WOW! I completely forgot about the redemption period. I think in NJ it was somewhere like 60-90 days if I remember correctly, but I have to look into what it is here in FL. I didn't realize that some states can take up to 12 months. That's crazy!

Thanks for the suggestion Gary. I too live in FL and have heard of people getting stuck with open permits when purchasing a property. Fortunately I haven't been faced with that. Is that something that usually turns up in a title search? How can you be held accountable for something that hasn't been recorded with the county?

I do look forward to checking out auction.com or Hudson & Marshall. I have been poking around Hubzu which is another post foreclosure auction website. However, I have been noting more and more that they are posting "property may be occupied. No showings allowed." I don't know if that is a game that they are playing or if more and more tenants/owners are playing the "waiting game' and living for free for as long as they can

Great work as usual!! I agree on the county auctions. Here they are controlled by 5 or 6 investors and groups that pay way more that I can. They do multiple, multiple properties every week so their margins are much tighter than mine can be. However, they have made great buyers for my deals!

Michael

We bought a vacant lot that's was a HOA foreclosure, I searched the county's clerk website & there wasn't anything else recorded. so I bought it for 25k, at the time it was work 70k, went to sell it for 45k & found out there was an additional 25k mortgage on it that was record in the wrong county. To top it off, the company that help the loan was in bankruptcy & ended getting a lawyer & after a big to do did a quiet title(which took 2 years). Now it's worth less than 10k, so we just kept it for our son & in 20 or 30 years he can sell it.
Always have a title company do a prelim search, just to be sure !

I know of a site here in Florida were you can buy Tax Deed properties, but I want to know how long does a suite to quite title would take with a attorney..

Make sure you know what position the lien is in that you are bidding on. You might think you are getting a smoking deal only to find out that the second lien was foreclosing, not the first.

Hi, Walter. I've dealt with Hubzu (Altisource) successfully. I bought/wholesaled a foreclosure property in Doylestown, PA just under 3 weeks ago through this company. Title work came back swiftly and settlement went according to plan. A special warranty deed was given. Once I win the bid on these properties and once the AOS is signed by all parties, the contract is submitted to my closing agent (even though you can use the seller's closing company and save on fees) and title work is started. All liens attached to the property are the seller's obligation to resolve.

GREAT place to get BUYERS