There are hundreds if not thousands of free pre-foreclosure lists, so why bother to pay for pre foreclosure lists that provide the same information? Believe it or not it may actually save you money to pay to belong to a website that allows you to view pre-foreclosure lists, rather than to use the free sites. The following reasons are the key factors in why paid pre foreclosure lists are ideally suited to serious investors.
Time IS Money
In the investment and real estate world this is absolutely true. The time that it takes to browse through the hundreds of thousands of pre foreclosure lists on the internet is time that you could be spending contacting home owners, surveying areas and neighborhoods and putting together offers and information. The more serious of an investor you are the more critical time is when you are juggling multiple deals at the same time. Using free pre foreclosure lists may be cost saving money wise, but if you factor in your hourly rate you will definitely be losing money each minute you spend at your computer looking through lists that might not have one property of interest to you.
Research and Tracking
While most of the free lists will provide information on the physical address of the property, many don't include pictures, specific information on the property, comparable sales figures and even the homeowner and lender contact information. If you don't have this information, you will again need to take your own time or more likely hire someone else to do this research for you.
The Early Bird Gets The Worm
When pre-foreclosure properties are put on lists, there is a huge interest in the property generated by those using the lists. The faster that you can contact the homeowner and the lender the faster you can present the bid on the property for the sale. If you can directly access all the information that you need on the paid site, you are far ahead of the group of investors that is trying to save a few dollars by doing the research on their own.
Finding Just What You Want
The paid pre foreclosure lists all offer the option of notifying you when a property matching your search criteria is placed on the list. This can help you in saving both time and energy as you can really fine tune the search criteria based on price, age of the home, market value, location and other specific criteria.
Avoid Junk Mail
Free sites are paid for by advertisers; so you will have to provide some type of email address to access the site. Once you do that you are giving permission for advertisers to contact you in exchange for the use of the free listings. Paid sites don't have this same need for income from advertisers, so you will typically avoid all the junk mail associated with using the free sites.
Understanding pre-foreclosure listings is important, especially if you are trying to capitalize on a declining home sale market and what to purchase an outstanding property at a lower than market value price. Pre-foreclosure listings, also known as short sale listings, are available for free on many different sites on the internet as well as through private access sites. Keep in mind that all homes on pre foreclosure listings are not for sale, some owners will be able to negotiate with lenders, refinance, or may borrow against other collateral to make up their default payments, bringing the property out of foreclosure.
Pre-foreclosure listings are also known as short sales, since the buyer is selling his or her property "short" of the total cost of the mortgage. For example, a home owner with a $200,000 home that is in pre-foreclosure may owe $180,000 on the mortgage, but may be willing to sell the home for $160,000 to avoid having a foreclosure on their credit record. This means that the buyer will purchase a $200,000 home for $160, 000 or less, which is well worth the effort to find pre-foreclosure listings and contact the owners.
Depending on the type of pre-foreclosure listings that are provided by your agent or the website you select, you may be provided with more or less information. The free websites tend to offer the very basic information while the pay per use or subscription type websites can be highly detailed in the information they provide. This information may provide information such as:
• Market value and equity information on the property
• Comparable sales in the area both in foreclosures, pre foreclosures and traditional home sales
• Property reports
• Tax information on the property
• Arial maps of the area as well as pictures of the property
• Phone numbers and contact information for the home seller
Since there are more and more people that are investing in property using the pre foreclosure listings and services, the most up to date and current listings tend to provide the best returns for investors. When deciding if you want to subscribe to a particular pre-foreclosure listing service, check to see if they offer a free trial offer that you can become familiar with navigating around the site and locating information in a simple fashion. Many sites are set up to email you the information or to send daily listings that meet your search criteria directly to your email or to your cell phone through a text message.
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