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Opened Dec 03, 2025 by Malorie Wolken@maloriewolken
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How to find REO Properties: A Newbie's Guide


What are REO residential or commercial properties? Finding REO residential or commercial properties How to buy REO residential or commercial properties

If you're new to real estate investing and thinking about tossing your hat into the "REO residential or commercial property" ring, there might be questioning how to discover REO homes (and how to close those offers once you find them).

Though making an REO offer on a residential or commercial property does require and more than a couple of hoops to leap through - learning how to buy a bank-owned residential or commercial property can be a rewarding part of your genuine estate investing portfolio (and can assist you discover underestimated residential or commercial properties, without the marketing expense required when buying a residential or commercial property from a house owner). For what it deserves, bulk REO residential or commercial properties can be one of the best exit methods for investors that know what they are doing.

What Is An REO Residential or commercial property

An REO residential or commercial property, or property owned residential or commercial property, is a bank-owned home that stopped working to offer at auction after the owner defaulted on its mortgage. The process of ending up being an REO residential or commercial property transpires in this manner:

- The property owner (debtor) fails to make the mortgage payments on the residential or commercial property

- The loan provider begins the foreclosure procedure

- The lender sends a notification of default

- The customer continues to stop working to pay

- The lender problems a notification of sale

- The customer stops working to produce the lending institution requires

- The residential or commercial property is put up for public auction

- Your home fails to cost auction

- The loan provider takes ownership of the residential or commercial property

- The lending institution sells your house to generally to home buyers or financiers

Where To Find REO Deals

Understanding how to purchase bank-owned residential or commercial properties is one thing, however if you are going to devote, you require to know where to find the offers. Here are three ways to respond to the "where to find REO offers" concern and put you in an excellent position to get an REO residential or commercial property.

1. Let Your Fingers Do The Walking

The easiest and most conventional approach for finding REO residential or commercial properties is to just search one of the many public-access sources of REO listings. This includes:

- Public Records: Whenever a home goes to foreclosure a notification should be taped with the County Clerk. As the name suggests, these records are public and offered for anybody to view. You'll wish to search for a Notice of Default (NOD) or Notice of Sale. Most importantly, this kind of search is totally free.

- Bank REO Listings: Most lenders put together lists of all their offered REO residential or commercial properties. The Bank REO Real Estate blog has a resource where they have actually collected a lot of the larger ones. Though the search is free, the procedure is time-consuming, as there are various listings to go through.

- Government Foreclosures: Banks and lending institutions aren't the only institutions who can foreclose on a residential or commercial property. The federal government - and more specifically government organizations such as Fannie Mae, U.S. Dept. of Housing (HUD), and the Small Business Administration - can seize a residential or commercial property. And each of them has listings of foreclosure residential or commercial property that you can place on your wishlist.

- Pre-Foreclosure Listing Service: Unlike the sources mentioned above, utilizing a service such as RealtyTrac - which aggregates foreclosure and pre-foreclosure residential or commercial properties in one location - is not a long-term complimentary alternative. But the initial cost is little when compared to the long-lasting revenue potential these foreclosure residential or commercial properties can bring.

The benefit to these kinds of research-based sources is that most of them totally free, or when it comes to RealtyTrac, rather inexpensive. The downside is that they take important time and energy. They are available to any other financier looking for an REO residential or commercial property (making it hard to get a get on the competition).

2. Leverage Your Network

What's the very best way to discover an REO residential or commercial property before it hits the public lists? Leverage your investor network, naturally. (A crucial benefit when discovering how to purchase an REO residential or commercial property.)

This would include, however not be restricted to:

- Listing representatives

- Asset supervisors

- Title representatives

- Mortgage brokers

- Contractors

Listing agents and possession managers can be the most practical, as they usually have a pulse on residential or commercial properties in the early REO process. This does, nevertheless, require that you already have an existing genuine estate network or are presently building one; another reason it's never prematurely to get begun building your financier network out.

3. Go Where The Foreclosures Are

The law of supply and demand does not simply apply to that 12th-grade economics class you took in high school. It likewise applies to the process of purchasing an REO residential or commercial property.

That's because, quite merely, the more supply you have actually within an offered market, the more opportunities you'll have to get an REO residential or commercial property (specifically if you're starting and it's your first time making an offer on an REO residential or commercial property).

And while it's useful to invest in a market you know well - which is near you - often there can be real benefits in "dropping your hook where the fish are."

From an REO investment point of view, this implies targeting particular geographic regions that have high foreclosure rates. And while these numbers can change and are vulnerable to change, here are four U.S. areas that, according to RealtyTrac, might offer real REO residential or commercial property potential for an investor.

- Trenton/Newark: New Jersey is the state with the highest foreclosure rate, and with nearly 10% of all homes vacant, these 2 city locations have a lot of inventory to pick from.

- Baltimore: Charm City offers interesting potential to financiers. Maryland has a higher-than-average foreclosure rate and uninhabited home rate, yet its average home income is $20,000 greater than the national average. Meaning the ideal REO residential or commercial property may generate a generous-sized earnings.

- Las Vegas: With a high unemployment rate, 4.9%, and escalating uninhabited home rate, 14.1%, Nevada is a market with lots of motion. And with Las Vegas topping the foreclosure lists, there's likely to be plenty of REO residential or commercial property potential for you to consider.

- Miami/Ft. Lauderdale: Florida might have a lower typical earnings and foreclosure rate than other areas on this list, however with a 19.3% vacant home rate, there are a lot of REO residential or commercial properties to look at. (And with its distance to the beach, Miami could represent a fantastic meal into the REO investing trade.)

A terrific resource for updated foreclosure details, state-by-state, is RealtyTrac. Make sure to examine their listings for the most recent foreclosure details.

How To Buy REO Properties

The procedure of purchasing an REO or bank-owned residential or commercial property is similar to purchasing a standard home. However, there are a few crucial differences that you need to be mindful of before you decide to acquire among these homes. Here is an outline of how to purchase an REO residential or commercial property:

- Prove that you are a certified purchaser by getting preapproved for a mortgage

- Find a property agent that you can deal with who is experienced in the REO home buying procedure

- Make an offer. Expect completing deals from other bidders. You will have the chance to counter deal

- Expect to perform a home appraisal to price the home's market price

- Conduct a title search to examine for any undisclosed liens on the home

Summary

Buying REO residential or commercial properties as part of a bigger investing method needs patience, ability and more than a little bit of determination. That's since there is only one answer to the "where to discover REO deals" problem: anywhere you can.

Learning how to find REO homes isn't as simple as sending a certain amount of direct-mail advertising postcards or buying a certain amount of Facebook ads. Though lending institutions are, by meaning, inspired sellers, this does not indicate they move quickly to close a deal.

Armed with details and a supply of investing energy, you can discover REO deals before the competitors does, which might provide you the persistence and skill for your next deal.

Ready to start benefiting from the current chances in the property market? Click the banner below to take a 90-minute online training class and get going learning how to invest in today's realty market!

The info provided is not planned to be used as the sole basis of any investment decisions, nor must it be interpreted as suggestions designed to fulfill the investment needs of any particular investor. Nothing supplied shall make up monetary, tax, legal, or accounting suggestions or separately customized investment guidance. This info is for academic purposes just.

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Reference: maloriewolken/propbuddy#1