Bay Area Property Alert   How Does Foreclosures Work ?   News & Event
05/01/2008
Foreclosure home is great opportunity to buy home at low price. Here are pros & cons of buying foreclosures homes.
  • Top tips on how to find foreclosures homes
  • Why buy homes prior to the filing of a Notice of Default ?
 
 
Living In Apartment
 
Living in apartment is freedom from mortgage payment, property tax payment etc. The living in apartment gives you freedom to plan your dynamic living, helps if your job is transferable or temporarily living in city.
 
     
 
Complaints Against Apartments
 
Frustrated with your rental office staff and their services. This is right place to take anger out. We provide outlet for angry renters to express views and let us know your apartment issues.
 
     
Economic Stimulus Package
Does it help?
Recently congress passed an unprecedented “economic stimulus package” to remove the fear of economy slipping into the recession. The economic stimulus package is supposed to bring confidence in consumers and keep economy away from recession.

Many believe the move from government has come late and may not help the cause. By the time checks will reach to common person, economy might have touched the outer boundaries of recession.

Then the question comes this $300 or $600 check, how it is going to keep economy away from slipping into recession. People with bad habits are going to blow money on cigarettes, drugs, lotteries, the end result more money to state and federal government.

What would have been better idea is to grant low tax bracket to poor and middle class, for couple of years, counties providing relief in property taxes, lenders providing extension for low interest rates and good subsidy to industries for keeping jobs in US.

These small checks hardly make any dent into economy, these are good for lifting consumer confidence and good for vote policy. This sure saves government from tough questions from press and public.


The best ways to stop foreclosure
This is the worst nightmare of every homeowner to think about house going through foreclosure. Every home owner puts 100 percent in saving his or her home. The reasons for a house coming under foreclosure can be from “job loss”, “owned by widow”, “partner dispute”, “high debt”, “unable to pay high interest rate mortgage” etc. Read More Tips
   


The first question in mind comes “Is buying foreclosure home a good Deal” ?. Very valid question. Experienced investors and home buyers who want a great deal or cheaper home price in real estate, always think first for pursuing foreclosure homes. The general perception about foreclosure home is a beautiful home being sold in distress situation. The reason in buyers mind can be, owner loosing the job, owned by a widowed unable to pay mortgage or lean put on home etc. These are main reasons, others could be Excessive debt, fight with co-owner, divorce or a job transfer.

First - Why Sellers opt for foreclosure option?

 No seller will like to put his house on foreclosure and go through a painful experience of foreclosure procedures. After all a home is a sweet home. If seller is going for foreclosure option that means he or she has tried every option of saving their home. As explained above the reasons, why homes get listed in foreclosure list are as follows:

  • owner loosing the job
  • owned by a widowed unable to pay mortgage
  • lean put on home
  • Excessive debt
  • High bill obligations
  • Fight with co-owner
  • Divorce
  • A Job Transfer
  • Unable to pay Mortgage due to high Mortgage rate.


Before you start thinking in this direction, it is important you do a detailed search and look for pros and cons of buying a foreclosure home. The proceedings of “Foreclosure homes” will differ from State to State”. Always good ides to check, what laws apply in state in which foreclosure home is for sale.

Top tips on how to find foreclosure homes.


There are many web sites, which let you search for foreclosure homes. Some will let you do partial search, some will allow free trial for limited time and others will charge a good amount for giving information on foreclosure homes. Regardless, which approach you use, one still needs guidance and top tips for finding a foreclosure home. Getting the foreclosure list is the first step in buying a foreclosure home.

You will find it funny but some people have fulltime job of investing in foreclosure homes. The foreclosure homes are always in market, although more in week real-estate market. For these experience people timing of real-estate market is of less important then condition and location of home. The laws of state need to be verified before buying a foreclosure home, each state will have different rights for seller. Some may be able to live for longer period in foreclosure home even after foreclosure sale has been completed.

First thing foreclosure procedures vary from state to state. Check your state laws, where you are planning to buy foreclosure home. Some states use mortgage and some states use trust deeds, both have different set of rules for foreclosure owners.

Sellers do get some period of redemption, during the irrevocable period seller can recover home by paying back interest, missed payments and any other cost included in foreclosure process.

  • Check the location of home, is it in good neighborhood.
  • How are schools in area, the good school means it will fetch good returns.
  • Is it on road or on cul-de-sac, the less traffic more value for home.
  • How easy is to get to interstate, what are nearby job prospect.
  • Check the status of property, is it vandalized ?.
  • Check listing is not overpriced.
  • Check with county office, how do they handle foreclosure homes.
Foreclosure website links
Search on following websites to find foreclosure homes: Types of foreclosure

Before you plunge in foreclosure buying market, get familiarized with stages of foreclosure processing. The gained knowledge will help you in understanding the foreclosure process and also to maximize your chances in getting the good and clean deal.

The three well known types of foreclosure are “Pre-Foreclosures” - “Foreclosure” - “Post Foreclosure”. Each phase is important in foreclosure processing and has its pros and cons.


First Pre-Foreclosure type: In this phase buyers or investors will help seller a good deal by agreeing to a mutual agreed price. This also helps buyer as the possession of property is in good condition, no lender is involved in initial stage. The pre-foreclosure leads will be available from relators, attorneys, CPA’s or through friends and relatives.

Second Foreclosure type: Check what is the county name where foreclosure home is listed. Contact or check with county Clerk’s office about the details of home. Browse through records where documentation is filed such as “Notice of Default”. The other place to check for foreclosure information is the title companies, sometime in anticipation of future business they do provide foreclosure information. During this phase it will be determined if property needs to go through judicial or non-judicial process (judicial forms are filled if state is using mortgage and non-judicial forms for deeds or trusts). This step ensures that the property is ready to go through foreclosure sale.

Post Foreclosure type: At this point house is already under the ownership of new owner. The remaining documentation work is done in this phase. Many states allow seller to live for some time till they find alternate living house. Check your state laws, what are applicable to seller and buyer in case of foreclosure sale. Sometime private parties also buy foreclosure homes with the intent of reselling it to first time buyers. In that case check with bank which owned the property or with real-estate agent for more information.


One time hot market real-estate market of bay area is going through real-estate downturn. Couple of years back it was common to see multiple bidding for single home and homes being sold over asking price. Lot has changed in last two years, except few pockets in Bay Area rest of the bay area has home price going down by 20-40 percent. Get more information... Information About Bay Area

One time hot pockets of Bay Area such as San Ramon, Antioch, Brentwood are having high rate of foreclosure. In this downtrend my heart bleeds for people whose house is going through foreclosure. It is hard to imagine people’s hard earned money going through the drain.

Having said that there is market for first time buyers, now is the chance from them to take advantage from low housing market.

Notices of Default for houses and condos
  • County - 2007 - 2008 - Yr
  • Q1 Q1 Yr%
  • San Francisco - 216 - 420 - 94.4%
  • Alameda - 1,578 - 3,194 - 102.4%
  • Contra Costa - 1,969 - 4,718 - 139.6%
  • Santa Clara - 1,058 - 3,074 - 190.5%
  • San Mateo - 382 - 911 - 138.5%
  • Marin - 118 - 314 - 166.1%
  • Solano - 914 - 2,091 - 128.8%
  • Sonoma - 407 - 1,392 - 242.0%
  • Napa - 88 - 284 - 222.7%
  • Bay Area - 6,730 - 16,398- 143.7%
Note: Source: DataQuick Information Systems read more
Quick Link
Internet Home Research

With the internet access at your finger tips, the knowledge, tools needed for online home buying has become easy. Gone those days when you will move in to neighborhood and then start getting feedback about your neighborhood. Today, you can research on house, neighborhood, city, schools, jobs, crime in area, parks in area, hospitals in area etc. Today's buyer is more informed and more demanding about hose information.

Important thing for home buying is to complete your pre-buying things to do.

  • Select few neighborhoods, check last 10 years of property trend in this area.
  • If you are buying town home or planed community home, check which one has low HOA (Home owner association charge)
  • Check school area. Lot people move blindly into a good school area and later realize that there school does not fall into good school zone. Check with school if your house fall in their school zone.
  • Get free credit report and check how good are your chance of getting home loan.
  • Explore neighborhood and get reviews from community associations, go through local issues, check forpast history
  • Check for local parks, local hospitals, libraries, airports, and near by jobs
  • check real estate tax assessment from county website
  • Check for sex offenders from national sex offenders registry
  • Get Pre-Approval from Lender
  • Get in touch with Real-estate agent and provide him your requirements.
Online Tools to Research homes on Internet