Part of screening IMO is putting together someone's puzzle pieces together, and trying to project their story and most importantly-- how will they pay rent!   

I rely on "propertyradar.com" for title search, than I pull a property profile for guidance at the county recorder's office to puzzle together loans and re-conveyances, foreclosure notices and releases but have not been able to figure out "how to" estimate default amounts on mortgage liens, for example I am currently looking at this HOA foreclosure schedule for 11-26-14 in which the estimated market value is $484, 397.00, with a standing senior mortgage of $103,000.00 issued on 7/16/2009 and the HOA default in the amount of $22,488.00; There is no other mortgage liens, judgments, special liens, notice of default or notice of trustee sale found and the starting bid is set at $24,950.00I do not know if current mortgage is in default, I just see every day how big players confidently bid huge amounts on this properties and think they would not do it without certain degree of confidence, in other words from my example above how can I estimate the maximum amount to bid if there is no certainty that the senior loan has 80 or 90 thousand dlls. in default, my experience is if someone else has defaulted on the hoa, most likely their mortgage is in default as well.

Just want to make sure I'm not missing a piece of this puzzle.

I feel puzzled though it's like I have all the puzzle pieces sitting in front of me I don't know where to start.

So, I'm out-numbered.The last piece of the puzzle is that we recently moved and are likely to stay in our new location for quite a long time; we knew that where we previously lived we wouldn't be there long-term, so we likely would have sold them off quickly anyway.

I am starting to get the ball rolling and I seem to have a few pieces of the puzzle I am missing.

Based on the fact that a buyer can't get a loan for more than the value of the home, this is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle to a typical home buyer.

A sellers asking price is often nowhere near its true value.The puzzle piece number 3 is concerning.

I mean that CRM was a BEAST and it only took that last final piece of the puzzle to realize I just spent $5k on va's&add ons&customizations even though will now be paying $500/mo to keep it running.

I've done my homework, but will buy in the experience.What puzzles me is that CRE has been tanking, but where are all the opportunities?