Buying foreclosures in Tampa

[Chet Jennings]

Hello BP, newbie looking to buy my first property.  I live and work in the Tampa Bay area.  Been looking at the Hillsborough county foreclosure auctions and was wondering if anyone has any advice, insight, experience into this arena? Seems to me that the banks are primarily buying back these properties. Does this create an opportunity to then purchase these as REOs? If so, what's the best approach.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

[Dev Horn]

Yeah, in 2009 banks were "motivated sellers" and we were doing a lot of short sales.  In 2015, banks are getting market value and have very little motivation to deeply discount their REOs.

You really don't want houses AFTER foreclosure (that's the problem you've seen here).  You want to try to save the homeowner who is in pre-foreclosure.  And of those, you really only want to deal with sellers who have substantial equity.