Obtain a DBA, then find a place to purchase data wholesale.

Remember the phone recording, "We are attempting to collect a debt...."

Even if they go into collections, we will just sell the account to one of our subsidiaries; take the tax break and then collect on the whole debt.â€I worked for banks where their lending department had the very same philosophy.

So you, the investor, contracts a month to month lease while you negotiate a short sale (which we all know is no quick process) 3 months later you collected rental income, the utitlies got paid, the house didn't sit vacant and exposed to vandals and squatters etc...

Would you ever send an amount of rent due to a collection agency?

The lenders can slap you with a deficiency judgement for whatever they aren’t able to collect from a foreclosure auction.

And you're earning exactly nothing on your investment.Even managing it yourself and collecting the property managers cut, about $400/month, you're still in the hole.Never buy based on what might happen.

Keep tabs of what they feel is owed, try and collect when the borrower sells

Just saying prices should fall by 50% based on the long term data doesn't imply that the price of every house is going to fall by 50% from the peak.

It takes an additional five years, seven total, to get back to the same nominal price.Unfortunately, seven years from now, $150K is equivalent to only $108K in today's dollars.Since Real Estate only appreciates at the rate of inflation, over the long term, (see Case-Shiller data), you'll never make up the loss over then next few years, on a post-inflation basis.Then, you sell.