Thinking that a foreclosure is the end of the rainbow for your stressed financial situation? Wrong, it’s only the beginning. You have lots of hurdles to face once the foreclosure occurs and you no longer own the house. It’s not as easy a fix as you may think.
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When looking for foreclosure properties, you really can’t be 100% certain which properties are about to be foreclosed upon. All you can do is check court records to see if anything has been filed. Any payment information on the mortgage is not public record. There is no way to find out if they are going into foreclosure if it has not been filed yet.
References : I’m a property manager. Was this answer helpful?
Leidy:
While that is true, there are clues.
1. One clue is when someone files a chapter 13 bankruptcy, they are given a bankruptcy automatic stay which prevents creditors from taking further action against the debtor. When creditors petition the court to revoke the stay, all those documents are a part of the public record. If you monitor the docs for petitions to remove the automatic stay, you can find the debtors that are about to be thrown out of Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Once that debtor protection is removed, it’s open season for the collectors. Usually the house is also at risk. Assuming the debtor doesn’t file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, foreclosure is highly probable in the near future. Keep in mind, I’m not a lawyer so look all this stuff up for yourselves. The terms and bankruptcy types may not be accurate.
2. When the bank forecloses on a house, those documents are public record and you can find out almost as soon as the homeowner. The only bad thing about this approach is that you get the news the same time as 1000s of other home buyers do and all of you descend on the homeowner at the same time. It’s never pretty. Another problem is that your time to close is limited and if the mortgage is underwater, it means working with the bank which takes time.