Preforclosure information from the county

[Raul Delacruz]

As a newbie where can I find information on how to get preforclosure information at the county step by step, example by videos or books

[Ron S.]

Originally posted by @Raul Delacruz:

As a newbie where can I find information on how to get preforclosure information at the county step by step, example by videos or books

 "preforeclosure information" could mean a million different things to a million different people and could send you down a million different rabbit holes.

If you are trying to learn about investing in foreclosures...well...you guessed it...there are a million different avenues available to you.

My starting suggestion is to avoid paying for any services that you can obtain on your own for free. Foreclosure information is public and that means, any PUBLIC information about a particular foreclosure is available to you. MOST information that is public is free of charge. You can go to the county recorders office, clerk's office, courthouse, etc. to get information. As a noob, you probably don't know what information to look for so, a good place to start is the public notice section of any local newspaper. For the cost of a newspaper, you get to see the notice of default and/or the notice of sale of any property coming up for sale. You get the owner name, the loan amount (Original) or the default amount (That changes daily), the property address, who's foreclosing and the filing dates of any of the legal actions, and other relevant and some not so relevant information. You will see words and terms that are not familiar. Google is your friend.

• Read everything you can get your hands on:

Nolo Press is an incredible publisher and while laughable with their titles, they are really good at what they do and they have a "Foreclosure investing for dummies" book available. It's high level but very very worth reading and doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

• Attend a live auction sale:

I can't tell you how valuable that is. I have attended sales for 25 years and to this day I still get butterflies. I have my strategy mapped out. I have every piece of information available to me. I have my cashier's checks in line and still, with everything I know and have and all, I still get nervous.

• Get your seed money lined up now:

Trying to do a "Subject to" or use hard money for a purchase, or trying to get a conventional bank loan because some asshatyahoo at a Holliday Inn seminar that you paid $99 to attend, told you how he got rich and for you to do it that way, is only going to help remove you from your money and frustrate you. Can you leverage someone else's money? Yeah. Can you borrower money from a hard money lender? Yeah. Can you take out a 401K loan? Yeah. There are...yeah...you guessed it...a million different ways to finance your adventure but stick with the basics as a noob. If you are broke, start collecting stamps instead to build your fortune. If everyone could do this, everyone would. Everyone can't do it and there are lots of people lined up to deprive you of your hard earned, or borrowed money.

• Remove your emotions and replace them with logic:

"I plan to buy a house to live in and want to buy a foreclosure, this foreclosure, because its awesome, for X reasons..." is typically not the best investment strategy. If you are trying to buy a home to live in, buy a home to live in with an agent on the open market until you know what you are doing.

• Disregard my first paragraph warning about spending money when it's time to spend money:

Don't get cheap when it comes time to the need to spend money. If you have a deal that you are going to consider, spend the money and get the title work to find out who the foreclosing entity is. I can't tell you how many times I started a foreclosure as the junior lienholder with an existing first lien that had no relation to me, where a noob came out of the woodwork thinking they were going to bid on my $50,000 junior lien to buy a $600,000 house, did bid, did buy it and then got a notice of intent to foreclose from the senior lien holder 30 days later on a $600,000 balance. yeah, that happens.

Anyway...that's my two cents. There's more. There's always more.