A few days ago I spoke to a new RealtyTrac customer who was having trouble tracking down foreclosure property in Long Beach, Calif. She said something like, "Is the information on your site accurate? I haven't had any success in pursuing properties."

So we looked up some of the properties she was interested in, called one of the property trustees and walked away with information that I think will be helpful both for her and for RealtyTrac. I also think a lot of foreclosure buyers and investors using RealtyTrac could benefit from what we learned, so below is the first of several "Lessons from Long Beach."

Lesson 1: Take an area's foreclosure activity into account
When you run a search, look at the number of properties and entered dates to get a big-picture view of the foreclosure activity in the area you're searching. Not all areas have a lot of recent foreclosure activity, and that may mean you'll have to be more patient in your search (make sure to set up daily e-mail alerts) or broaden your search so that you have more properties to choose from.

For example, one search this customer ran was for bank-owned properties in a specific Long Beach zip code. That search yielded just 14 properties, two of which RealtyTrac had since marked as SOLD. The most recent active property was entered on Dec. 30, 2005.

Because of the sparse search results, I advised the customer that buying a bank-owned property in the zip code she was searching would require an extra measure of patience and persistence. But to remind her that it is possible, I also told her about a recent member success story that recounts how a customer successfully purchased a bank-owned property.

More to come ...