Beginner title research q's / 2nd? position court steps auction

[Greg P.]

This may be a long post so please bear with me and ask questions if needed to clarify anything I have not explained clearly. I want to hopefully cover everything.

Property in WA state.

According to Foreclosure Radar:

"?" Position loan: 2005, Previous chain of events indicated this note went from one bank, to another (who filed NTS in 2012 but didn't actually auction it off), and now owned by a private party attorney, who has filed NTS. Bid is ~30k.

"?" position loan 2007, 77k, Citifinancial (Foreclosure Radar says not current)

"?" position loan 2008, 100k, Citifinancial (Foreclosure Radar says not current)

"1st" position loan 2009,135k, with Citifinancial Inc.

None of the documents are available online, and I'm hours away from the area, so I would likely be better off paying a title company for something like a "preliminary title report" / O&E report.. than going down there myself. The title report would tell me the true position of all the loans, but it wouldn't tell me the current status of the "1st" position loan with Citifinancial that has not filed any NTS or NOD etc..correct?

1. I would like advice on what questions to ask specifically and what to expect/hope to pay as an investor calling up a local title company for a preliminary title report, without any previous interactions with the company. I'm not concerned with getting one for free but hoping to find a company that is fairly "affordable."

2. But my main question is, with a large bank like Citifinancial, how can I go about finding out what the "payout amount" for the 1st position loan is...when my name is not on the title and I do not have short sale proceedings going on, etc. I have no idea about this and a search didn't turn up anything.

The reason this 2nd position bid is interesting to me is that even at the full price of 30k + buying out the first position loan at upto 135k cash, the math works, plus it is attractive because it is a certain type of fairly uncommon niche property (still SFR) that I've been specializing in.

Thank you for your time. Comments or suggestions about the overall process very much appreciated if you think there is something I might have missed.

[Wendell De Guzman]

On your question:

"2. But my main question is, with a large bank like Citifinancial, how can I go about finding out what the "payout amount" for the 1st position loan is...when my name is not on the title and I do not have short sale proceedings going on, etc. I have no idea about this and a search didn't turn up anything."

Here's my experience: YOU CANNOT find out since you are NOT the one on the loan. The only way for you to find out is by talking with the owner of the house and getting an Authorization to Release information.