Foreclosure Lessons from Long Beach: Part II
As promised, here is another lesson about successfully searching and
pursuing foreclosures based on a recent conversation with a customer
who was searching for properties in Long Beach, Calif.
Lesson 2: Call the trustee or lender to get most recent property status
After you find a property that interests you, first call the
trustee (for pre-foreclosures and auctions) or the
lender (for
bank-owned properties) to make sure the property is still in
foreclosure before you sink any more of your valuable time into pursuing
the property.
Confirming the status is necessary because although RealtyTrac checks
if a property is SOLD, there may be a delay before we receive that
information and the owner in default could also reinstate the property,
meaning it is no longer in foreclosure even though it did not sell.
Also, even if RealtyTrac has an auction date listed, it's not uncommon
for that auction date to be postponed, something you could only find
out from the trustee.
Note: sometimes you have to be persistent to get through to someone who
can help you. For example, one of the pre-foreclosure properties that
we looked up only had a lender name and phone number, not a trustee
name and phone number. We ended up calling the lender number and
receiving an update on the property status from a representative there.
More lessons to come ...