Tips on pulling pre foreclosure list - tax assessor vs paid list?

[Candyce Lee]

Hi All, I am putting together a list of pre-foreclosures in the northern ca area. Any tips on the best place to pull the information? Tax Assessor vs paid lists?  Thanks!

[Gavin D.]

@Kevin Walsh   @Candyce Lee
so the data you are looking for will not be at the assessors office....  online or in person.  Its going to be at the clerk of courts office.   You are looking for lis pendens filings.  Now this gets a little complex, because, lis pendens is strictly a placeholder for any legal suit one might file relating to real property. latin translation "suit pending".  So basically, when you want to make sure that everyone knows you are are about to file a lawsuit, lis pendens.  Primarily it gives a court jurisdiction over the property that is to be involved in the suit...  You are specifically looking for lis pendens where the plaintiff is claiming they will be filing a foreclosure, instead of something else.   Quickest way to limit those down quickly is to look for plaintiffs with the word "mortgage" or "bank" in the name ie. Nationstar Mortgage.  vs Joe Somebody.  Jane Somebody Vs Joe Somebody is probably a divorce case. 

As far as equity/ltv goes.... first off, thats always a guess until the house sells, however, the numbers that are provided with lead data, is always an estimate.  The only way you are going to get accurate principle balance or mortgage lates is if you have credit bureau data license, and even then the credit bureaus do not like associating actual balances/payment histories to lead data.  You ask for mortgage lates, they give you mortgage lates 30-60-90-120 all mixed in.   If you happen across that data, you can get a little more specific by bouncing the list down against lis pendens lists and the date the lis pendens was filed. 

The method of figuring that out equity is to look at the last mortgage deed/s filed on the property and the amount. Then lookup the prime interest rate +3% from that month/year when the deed was filed. assume its a 30 year fixed loan, and that all payments have been made up until a couple months prior to the lis pendens being filed, then solve for the balance of the loan/s by looking at the number of months that "hypothetically" had been paid on time, and plat that out on an amortization schedule. So if Joe somebody had a mortgage deed recorded in 2000 for $100,000 and lis pendens was filed last month, then there could have been 19+ years of 12 monthly payments made. If prime was 6.5% in 2000 then A=P(r(1+r)^n/(1+r)^n-1) or .... just google amortization schedule, and plug in the numbers, and look at the principle for 4 months ago.

One thing to keep in mind, a bank would much rather write a new loan and add the missed payments and penalties back into the principle, because they also get to charge origination fees again, and can now justify charging points to buy down an interest rate all of which gets added to the new balance.  This is basically a refinance, so the new loan has to clear what is called "net tangible benefit" guidelines.  This means that if the new / modified loan does not clear a benefit threshold for the borrower, it legally can not go through.  So whats the quickest way to reduce the monthly payment on a 10 year seasoned loan that is 7 months past due and not require any money from the borrower to cover fees or missed payments? Add the fees and missed payments to the principle, and start a new 30 year fixed loan!  so basically, when you are looking for pre-foreclosures, you do not want to look for mortgages filed more than about 8 years, because ultimately, the borrower is probably going to give in to the banks offers to "modify" the loan.

The assessor/auditors office does have useful data to investors however....
You can check for what i call "pre-delinquents taxes" at the assessors/auditors.  Basically, property taxes are paid in arrears, so lets say the tax bill comes out in october every year, they are technically not delinquent until october of the following year.   So if you want to beat all the tax delinquent marketers to the punch, look for people who have not paid their 2019 tax bill yet ( or in cali the first half of the year taxes) Mortgage companies typically require escrow accounts, so any tax records where the first half of the year is not paid probably either does not have a conforming first mortgage and could not afford to pay the tax bill, or has some other arrangement like a heloc or land contract.   Either way, if its less than 90 days from becoming delinquent, good chance they will (become delinquent). 
anyway...
here is LA county lis pendens https://pastebin.com/m50GkhAC