All Forum Posts by: Roy Schauer

I've always wondered about his system but I'm stubborn and would rather spend the money on a deal. There are a couple ways to find preforeclosure's. the most time consuming is usually the courthouse or wherever they post the NOD (Notice of Default). We have a free listing site for the local trustees office but they basically only cover the west coast. For your area I'd check www.forclosures.com. Sign up for the free trial and see if you like it. It allows you to find specific properties by address as well as search by criteria, like "have 20% equity or more". I have a couple pre-screening searches set up so I get emails when a new property hits the preforeclosure stage that meets my search criteria.

Hi Ralph,

I assume your talking about the Ferrara family. Is that correct? In anchorage they are all members of the same system that provides them comparables. The draw back is most appraisers don't want to fly remotely to do an appraisal or are not familiar with remote sight building appraisals. I would call Alaska Appraisal and Consulting Group, they are here in anchorage but do remote appraisals for lodges etc. Explain your situation and see if they can give you some more insight. Here is there web page: http://www.akacg.com/

Hope that helps!

And from Alaska, a warm welcome and good luck on your search!

Here's a question for you to ask yourself: how else would they have found out what you can possibly do to help them? For the beginner or smaller company, people are not going to know your out there unless you inform them. It's like commercials on tv, they can choose to ignore or look somewhere else. However if people don't even know your out there, your chances of being a solution for them become non-existent.

what about a lease option where the option payment pays the reinstatement amount and puts a little bit in your pocket. Structure the monthly rent to pay mortgage with a little extra in your pocket, this depends on rents in the area. And then collecting the difference in sale price on the back end. If structured right, can help rebuild the sellers credit and puts some money into your pocket every month. Or structure the documents for the buyer and charge an assignment fee and step out of the deal all together after its set up.

Hi Kristi,

I use a service called
http://www.foreclosures.com/

I did a quick check to make sure they have stuff in your area. They show pre-foreclosures and auctions that are recent, published as of 7/30/13. Not sure if this is what your looking for. They do have a 7 day trial, but make sure you cancel if you don't like it. It's about $50 a month subscription service. I use them to set parameters for specific property types like 20% equity in a particular area and as properties are updated it sends me an email if it meets my criteria with the address and some details about the property. I cross reference this information with my local Recorders Office, which is online, to check the history of the persons and the property, very similar to doing a title search. This lets me know if I am willing to spend anymore time on the particular property. It comes down to numbers. Once you've been looking at properties for a while, you'll get so you can weed out the ones your don't want to spend time on very quickly.

One way I find that is easy to get information from banks is to get an Authirzation to Release Information signed by the owner that states the address, loan #, and your name that is signed by the owner and faxed to the bank. Once this is on file, it allows you to call and check on the status and get any information about the loan. If they ask what you are, just say your working with the owner to resolve the situation. You'll typically need the last 4 of the owners social also because its used as verification.

Hi Justin,

I'm not young, but still consider myself a beginner, almost 3 years now. There is a lot of negativity regarding getting into real estate, especially in Anchorage. However, there are groups of people going through the same thing. The biggest thing is to get out there, start talking to people, ask questions and realize it will take time and a lot of persistence. Looking forward to meeting you some day.

Hi Cristina, have heard about you but we haven't really met in person yet. Jason, it can be tough up here. The Real Estate Commission and Realtors in general are very protective of the market. Like kyle said, the REX meets once a month, usually about the third Tuesday, search Facebook for the REX site. There are very few REI groups in Anchorage, if you do a search of Meetups, there are two I know of on there. We typically focus on preforeclosures & lease options, but would like to see group of people get together who handle deals in multiple different ways. Networking is so very critical in order to get past the gatekeepers up here.

Hi Dylan,

Typically the tax assessment is available online. Do a google search for "tax assessor or assessment office". For the mortgage amount owed, it varies by state but usually it has to be posted at the local courthouse and may be available online. I've used a couple of online websites that make the information available for a fee but they allow you to search by property address.