Buying Trustee / Pre-Foreclosure Properties

[Zach Schwarzmiller]

I am trying to learn how I might be able to pick up a property in Snohomish County Washington that is a trustee sale and/or pre-foreclosure - or whatever it might be before it's listed and open to all. I am a commercial guy and don't do anything single-family. When I worked for an equity fund which was buying portfolio's of notes we subscribed to trustee lists through a commercial source and would attempt to buy the note and then foreclose ourselves. I don't think I am comfortable doing this on my own, but I would like to purchase a single-family property within this criteria if there is a way to learn how to go about this.

I am not looking for an extremely popular property type which I feel gives me some advantage. I really want something in Snohomish County with 5+ acres, preferably 10-40 acres. I'd really like to stay under $500,000 but will pay all cash.

Knowing my criteria, is there any guidance one could give me for going about this in my area?

[Bryan R.]

@Zach Schwarzmiller

Trustee sales and Preforeclosures while kind of related have different criteria and require different approaches. It used to be that many properties headed to auction had equity and were ripe for preforeclosure approaches. These days very few have any equity so your only real hope is to stave off the sale by trying to push through a SS. That being said I did see one sneak by last week.

In WA prior to trustee sale a notice of trustee sale (NTS) must be posted at least 90 days prior to the auction date. These notices can be found a number of ways:

1. Searching through the NTS postings yourself. This can be rather tedious and requires some knowledge on your part.

2. Checking with the trustees directly. There are a handful of trustees that handle 90% of the sales, some of them operate websites, others email out lists or have phone numbers.

3. Signing up for a data service. There are a handful of websites you can subscribe to that collect most of the NTS data and make it available to you.

4. Signing up for an auction service. There are a number of local companies that for a fee specialize in helping investors buy properties at auction. This would be the most turnkey option.

It gets a lot more involved, I can answer any specific questions you have about the pros/cons of each or anything else.

I ran a brief basic search (snohomish county, 5+ acres, SFR) and there are properties that meet that description that have a open NTS.