NWI - Lake County Sheriff Sales

[Ryan Flanagan]

Hello all! I am looking for some help/advice on working pre-forclosures and auctions in Lake County Indiana. More specifically, I've been looking at the Lake County Indiana Sheriff's "Sale Listings" posted on their website. My plan is to get the list into excel, filter by target area and find out assessed values for properties using the assessors' website. If I subtract the judgement amount from the assessed value I might have something resembling an equity estimate for each property. For the ones that have sufficient equity I would reach out to the seller to try to buy it, and if all else fails, I could try to buy it at auction. Obviously I am glossing over title work, etc., but I am just trying to get a general idea of how people might approach lead generation using the monthly sheriff sales data. Is this even a good starting point for finding deals? Any input is appreciated!