Category: foreclosure

How To Keep Your Foreclosed Home From Going To Auction

If your home is in bank foreclosure, headed to auction, you know it. You’ve been warned by your lender ahead of time that they were planning to foreclose if they didn’t get your payment and you didn’t pay them, did you? So you expected the foreclosure. And they did it. The foreclosure is now a matter of public record, so now you’re getting more mail than you know what to do with all about saving your home.

The companies offer to work with you to keep your foreclosed home from going to auction. They have the resources to help you out of the situation you are in. The downside? Many of them charge a lot for their services. And some are ruthless, taking advantage of your situation (like those who offer to buy your house for a fraction of what it is worth).

Talk To Your Lender

The first thing you should do when your are in foreclosure (your home could be auctioned) is to know the facts. When was the foreclosure filed? The clock starts ticking from that day. There are several steps before home foreclosure and auction your lender can help you understand this, as can the paperwork the courts mailed you. Your debt will be higher immediately, with the added on foreclosure fee, but it will also go up periodically, whenever they need to mail you more information about your foreclosure like when the home auction is scheduled to take place. The further down this road you go, the more it will cost you. Find out from the lender how much your outstanding debt is there’s a chance it is higher than you expected.

See if you can renegotiate with your lender. They don’t want your house, they want their money. Some lenders will be amenable to working out a new deal with you, perhaps tacking on the missing payments to the end of the loan instead of expecting them immediately. Some will waive late fees for a bit, or give you more time before foreclosing. It can’t hurt to ask your lender what they can do to help you cure the default.

Decide how you will handle your situation. Do you have resources to tap into to pay off the default and cure the loan, making it current? Maybe an old trust fund or inheritance you can use, or a rich uncle you can ask for a gift or loan? Or would a smarter choice be to refinance your home? If you can, that might be a better in several ways a lower mortgage payment in the future, cash out to pay other bills, etc. Or you might want to just sell your home. Though you may not get as much for it as it is worth, the money you give up might be less than the hit you’ll take with a foreclosure and possible home auction. Choose carefully knowing that the sooner you take action, the better.

The Entire Real Estate Foreclosure Auction Process Is Simple And Uncomplicated

Buying your next home through a real estate foreclosure auction can prove to be an important milestone in your journey as a real estate investor. In fact, even in case of newbie or first time buyers, a real estate foreclosure auction is a great place to look for a cheap home. What s more, the entire process of buying a home through a real estate foreclosure auction is quite simple and it only requires viewing the property, being among a crowd of other buyers, and then bidding a price for a particular foreclosed home. If your bid is the highest the home is yours as long as you can pay the bid price.

Smart Investing

This ease of buying homes through a real estate foreclosure auction has led some very smart investors in real estate to start buying up hundreds of foreclosed homes through such auctions and then they sell these same homes at a higher price to realize a sizeable profit for their efforts. However, many of the homes that are put up for sale at a real estate foreclosure auction are in less than perfect condition and so require a lot of repairs before they can be expected to fetch a good price.

This means that you need to also be good at fixing dilapidated homes so that you can turn the home into one of sufficiently high standards that it fetches a handsome price. If you want to find out where and when a real estate foreclosure auction is being held you can check your local newspaper as well as go online to find out more. However, be prepared to expend quite a bit of effort in order to locate the better real estate foreclosure auctions.

It is also necessary to conduct some research regarding the properties being auctioned off at a real estate foreclosure auction as this will give a good idea about what a fair price is for a property and this in turn will help you avoid overbidding for the property. This might mean having to physically inspect the property and in addition it also means having to get the property assessed as well. And, once you have made an assessment of a property you should stick to that assessment at the time of bidding at the real estate foreclosure auction because this will help ensure that you do not overbid for the property.

Investors are generally one set of buyers that are most interested in buying homes at a foreclosure home auction though others too that are simply interested in flipping properties or who wish to buy a home to live in are also found bidding at such auctions. Whichever category of buyer you fall into, there is no doubt that these auctions are very exciting and there is a lot of fun to be enjoyed in bidding for a foreclosed home. So, make the most of your bid by checking the properties and assessing their values beforehand.