Video: Finding Short Sale Bargains on RealtyTrac
Short sales are a hot niche in the real estate market right now, with pre-foreclosure sales increasing 8 percent from Q1 2010 to Q2 2010, according to the latest RealtyTrac Foreclosure Sales Report. The report also shows that pre-foreclosure sales, which typically would represent short sales in today's market, accounted for 9 percent of total sales in the second quarter and that pre-foreclosure properties sold at an average sales price that was 13 percent below the average sales price of homes not in foreclosure.
So how do you find short sales in your neighborhood that represent a good bargain? You can use RealtyTrac's foreclosure search and new Foreclosure-MLS Match feature to quickly identify pre-foreclosure properties that are listed for sale. Then using the wealth of information available on the property details you can determine how "short" the listing price is below the amount owned on the loan in foreclosure and also how good of a bargain the property might be based on the listing price per square foot compared to price per square foot for recent comparable sales and also price per square foot of nearby listings.
Here's a quick video on how this works.