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Thanks.

All good tips.

I am interested in buying and selling Real Estate full time, and doing as many deals as I can manage. So, any source of such information that is high quality but also inexpensive is favorable, because I plan to do this in volume.

Hope your'e enjoying the weather in sunny Arizona.

What do you think of Joe Arpaio?

FLAREAUCTION

Interesting.

People may not record the true value of a sale for a number of reasons. But, that info is definitely important.

Estimating is one thing, but knowing what people actually paid in a given area is a better measure, I think.

For what it is worth, however, I am not sure that zillo is worth a damn.

FLAREAUCTION

Thanks.

No, as yet I am not an auction company.

Right now I am an individual trying to acquire properties at a super-low price, then turn around and sell them to investors at what is still a bargain for whatever market.

FLAREAUCTION is an acronym for FLORIDA REAL ESTATE AUCTION

I needed a good domain name, and of course so many are taken.

In the future I will be auctioning properties as a corporation, and I will use my website for doing so. Also, I am using e-bay now, and will in the future, hence the "auction" part of my name.

I have been studying real estate techniques on and off for several years now. I also work as a UNIX network administrator full time, and have had a fair amount of legal experience, and experience in the maze of public records. So, at this point I am tying all that together to build a real estate business.

I got my first property as such just recently, and am selling it. I have had several offers before 30 days elapsed. As soon as I take care of some municipal red tape with the City of West Palm Beach, I will close.

I started writing a program to get the websites for every county. Basically it works like this:
1) Take the list from the census website
2) For every county, do a google search for that state and county's name, plus keywords like "court" "clerk" "website" "tax deed", "recorder" etc...
3) For each of these searches take the first page, or couple of pages, and pull out the links to county websites. (They usually follow a naming convention like xxx.county.state.us, or xxxcountyclerk.gov, or something like that).
4) Arrange them all by state on a web page.

In about a week or so, I will post the results.

FLAREAUCTION

UPDATE

The US Census Service has lots of data available online.

They have a list of every county in the nation. From there one could use that list to search the internet for any county specifically.

There are various legal-oriented websites that have links to state and county court websites as well.

I do not know if there is one tailored to Real Estate investors. (i.e. has links to all relevant data sources like the court, tax assessor, appraiser, GIS/mapping, recorder, zoning, etc).

If not I am sure I will work on building one.

FLAREAUCTION

Anyone know of a comprehensive list of County, State, and City clerk or court websites?

A while back I came across a book that listed the address and phone number of every courthouse in the country.

This would help foreclosure investors.

Online there is a lot of foreclosure info posted, even a website who's name is foreclosue dot com. (As far as I can tell, they want you to pay for their service).

It takes some time to post data gathered from a court house on the net. It may be same day, but the publishers may take time to verify the info, or are publishing it second or third hand.

(By the way, there are corporations who have people at the courthouse every day collecting data. I know, because I have seen them there.)

Case files from court houses are a wealth of information about everything from crimes, to your Constitutional Rights, to potential real estate and other investment opportunities.

In fact the same may be said about all public records.

Public Record is your friend. (Except perhaps when that public record is about YOU).

FLAREAUCTION

Interesting.

So far, every file I looked at here in WPB, was 3 months like klokwork, and perhaps not surprisingly, about 5 or 6 law firms doing almost all the cases, and of those, 3 or 4 doing most of that work.

What I did was to build a data entry interface so that all the data I collected from the files could be stored in a MySQL database. I would correlate the case-file data with the property appraisers data by using the parcel number of the land.

Lots of "upside-down" (or nearly so), properties. As I have heard in the media, most of the foreclosures were within 2 years. (Not a lot of equity).

One person responded direct;y to the court with a letter indicating that they would cure the default, and would sell the property if necessary to do so. (Unfortunately this property was "upside-down").

This of course is a good reason to pull the files.

I have done a fair amount of legal research in the past several years. It may mean looking something up online, or in a law library.

Also, courthouses will usually let you look at the case files.

Now, I went to one of those Robert Allen seminars, (the free one), and basically the premise was legit. But, they suggested that pre-foreclosure is a better time to get in than after filing of the claim.

Of course they wanted you to buy their system to find out how to find pre-foreclosures, but it does make sense.

However, here in Palm Beach County, 3 missed payments usually means filing of a claim. I am not sure that is so late in the game.

A court house at least can let you know when a foreclosure proceeding is starting.

FLAREAUCTION

I am in Palm Beach County Florida.

Our County has a public appraiser. (Separate from the tax assessor). The Assessor decides tax values, but the Appraiser evaluates market values for properties.

(Have a look at Palm Beach County Property Appraiser website).

It is possible to download the sales records for just about every property in the county.

From there, one can compare recent sales in a particular area.

(Some sales are recorded for only $10, or $100, and so forth. But plenty others have the actual value listed).

Can other posters here tell me if other states/counties have similar systems?

Thanks.
FLAREAUCTION

A cheap way to make real estate signs is as follows:

Use a computer to create the content you want. It could be as simple as black text on white paper, or a complex color sign.

Have a print shop print the design on large-format paper. (This is getting very cheap these days. As little as a few Dollars for a 3-foot by 4-foot black and white laser print.)

Color inkjet is available as well, but is costlier. Also, inks fade in the sun. (Black Laser toner does not.)

Use bright-white paint, (Titanium white, or Lead white) to paint a board, and lay the paper on the board while it is still wet, (carefully), and smooth it out.

This will glue the paper to the board, and give a reflective substrate.

Then when it is dried, use a clear coat to cover the front surface. A water-seal type product can also be used. Finally, a coating of spray on water-repellent adds a little extra protection.

The front-coat seals the paper from water damage, and of course allows your information to show through.

Best of Luck to all.
FLAREAUCTION