Can’t find bank owned property in Houston but can’t find any

[Jack Medard]

I really want to make money by flipping homes. My family in Chicago buy cheap 40-50k homes, fix them, and sell them. These are mostly bank owned properties. I’d like to do the same thing in Houston, but I cannot find bank owned property here in Houston. Looking for some guidance in how to begin flipping in Houston or where to find cheap bank owned property. Thanks

[Bruce Lynn]

Very few foreclosures in Texas right now....probably for a lot of different reasons. There are some and will likely always be some, but for example I checked HUD website about a month ago and there were about 40 for sale in the entire state. I'm just throwing out a wild number but would not have surprised me if 10 years ago there were 400 HUD homes for sale at any one time in Houston. We've just had such a good price run, most people should be able to sell and sell at a profit if they want to vs foreclosure.

Probably the other issue is we don't have a lot of $40,000 homes like they do in other parts of the country.

If you have cash, you might try going to the courthouse foreclosure auctions and buy direct.  Also start a mailing and marketing campaign to people in distress in the areas you want to buy in the price range you want to buy.   Call those people and go knock on their doors.  If you don't do it, someone else is and they're buying those distressed properties.   I was out to see a distressed property in Ft. Worth yesterday and while that one was not ideal, found 12 others vacant in the immediate area....so there are homes out there in distress.