Hi, pre foreclosure in all of its permutations, before the bank sends Notice of Default (NOD) or efter which is state even county dependant but often starts a 4 week clock till the trustee auction are the 2nd most difficult deal scenario and IMHO only experienced investors should bother, the 1st most difficult deal scenario are bidding at the court house steps on lord only knows what is being auctioned off sometimes even 2nd mortgages, you need to do so much home work to attempt to reduce your risk at the court house steps...Pre foreclosure no one talks about these issues, always about the nice sounding stuff like "motivated seller" get a good deal etc etc both are usually not the case.- 95% of folks in pre or post NOD want to stay in their house, keep their house inspite of them 100% will loose the house at the auction. 

The problem is you can't afford to properly make repairs when you are dealing with the lower tier properties and go with the cheapest bids doing nothing but putting duct tape on issues that will become recurring or believing you are making the repairs correctly but use inferior labor and materials because its all the property can absorb cost wise.  

.- The 203(k) will allow you to bid on properties that need repairs that won't qualify for a traditional mortgage => less competition => better purchase price.You will need to find a great local contractor you can trust to supply the required bids to qualify for the 203(k).- After closing, you can do some of the work yourself to save money, but the program doesn't allow you to pay yourself.You will want to buy a Class B property, maybe Class C+, in an area that seems to be improving.

I've bought a ton of homes pre-foreclosure and at auction, happy to be a resource on that stuff, plus we just launched Bid Pirate, which is the one place online for NH, where you can see all the upcoming foreclosure auctions in one spot - you can learn a lot from the regulars at the auctions........ get after it, sister!

@Chris Kay finding a quality, cost-effective contractor is extremely difficult:(There are thousands of contractors that are great talkers, but rarely perform within budget.Standard bait & switch is to lowball a bid, then once they get started all sorts of things "pop up" that somehow their bid didn't cover.

The HOA has acknowledged the roof issue but claims repairs are delayed as they’re still collecting bids.

Of course unless your buying defaulted notes at the get go then again as Chris mentioned this type of fee should be handled up front.. and if it new origination your making and then they go bad.. in your foreclosures you can charge the borrower these fee's when they cure or add it to you opening bid and when someone buys it at the court house you get repaid..

I’d love to join your meetup when that restarts as I’ll need contacts for bids and management, etc.

Quote from @Sergio P Ramos: I am currently in a back and forth bidding situation.

Still park it & be ready bid side until the opportunity comes.