| If you're getting ready to buy a house, whether it's | | | | as fast as possible. All they're really interested in is |
| your first home or an investment property, it seems | | | | getting their money back, not in getting the top price |
| easiest to just visit your local real estate office and | | | | possible for the house. |
| find out what they have for sale. But did you know | | | | Obviously this can be of great benefit to you, if you're |
| that you can save tens of thousands of dollars buying | | | | the buyer of the property. Most of the time the |
| a home, if you buy a property that's in foreclosure, or | | | | previous owners will have been making payments for |
| even just preforeclosure? | | | | at least a year or two, and it could easily be a lot |
| The reality is that buying a home costs a lot of money, | | | | longer. This reduces the equity the bank has in the |
| and most of us don't have unlimited bank accounts to | | | | house, and reduces the amount of money the bank |
| fund the purchase. So if you can save yourself some | | | | needs to recoup from selling the house. They can't be |
| money, it's always worth doing. You want to get the | | | | bothered wasting time or effort getting top dollar, so |
| best possible house you can for the amount of money | | | | they'll often accept a price that is around the same |
| you have available. | | | | level as their equity in the property. This means you |
| Often, if you do your research carefully, you can end | | | | can essentially buy the property for the amount owed |
| up with a much bigger and nicer house than you | | | | to the bank, rather than for what it's really worth. |
| originally thought you could afford, simply because the | | | | The downside is that it can take time to find |
| price was so much cheaper than normal thanks to | | | | foreclosure properties. You can spend the hours |
| foreclosure proceedings. | | | | reading local papers or checking out local listings, or |
| When you're looking at listings, keep your eyes open | | | | you can make the process quick and easy by signing |
| for properties listed as REO Foreclosure. REO stands | | | | up for an online listing service. Either way, you'll |
| for "Real Estate Owned", and it basically means that | | | | probably need to be ready to move quickly if you |
| the bank foreclosed on the property and they now | | | | want to secure a really great deal, so it can be handy |
| own it. However banks are too busy making money to | | | | to have some cash handy to make the process |
| worry about handling a property portfolio, so they | | | | smoother. |
| generally want to offload any foreclosure properties | | | | |