Only a tiny portion of the bank REO inventory is actually for sale, so don’t bother paying for a foreclosure listing service. If you pay you will have access to which bank owns the house but it will do you little good, as they aren’t selling right now.
Typical call to a bank about an REO will go like this, IF you can get someone on the phone:
You: Yes hello, Id like to put an offer in on one of your REOs.
Bank rep: What’s the address?
You: 1635 Trafficula ct, Temecula ca.
Bank Rep: Sorry that house is NOT for sale, if and when it becomes for sale it will be listed on the MLS. Perhaps you’d like to bid on the only one of our 3500 REOs in that area that IS for sale? Better hurry!
The few REOs that banks do sell end up on Realtor.com or maybe Redfin. You can use Realty Trac’s free search to give yourself an idea of just how bad your target neighborhood really is, and maybe base your bids or buying time frame on that data.
