rt66, I can get anything from realty trac without paying and I’m not a realtor nor do I subscribe to any service. It does list the br/ba, sq footage, street name and amount without an account. With that info I can go to the GIS free website and get the name of the owners by looking at a map, you just click on the properties and it gives you name of the owners, sq ft, br count and exact address. Then I run the names of those that matched in a grantee search and all nods and nots are listed by name, also free and also online. Depending on the size of the street, there may be four or five of that model, I also run the taxes for free online and see who is behind. Foreclosure dot com gives you the name of the owner for free but not the sq footage or loan amount, I found that easier to confirm because it took less steps.
When I say it’s crap it’s from finding them via realty trac, seeing a preforeclosure, then running the people and seeing things like “remove notice of default” as the most recent entry, it’s three months old and it’s still on realty trac, it’s not just once, it’s most of the time. You can also see the sale to a third party (short sale going through). Maybe it’s different for you, but when I was actively hunting them, I gave up on RT because 50-70% were false, I found foreclosure dot com more accurate but it still was flawed, it seemed to miss more. I actually ran all three and cross referenced with tax and grantee searches and gis, they are good for tips, for finding things not on the radar and before the mls gets it, but for stats it sucks.
BTW, it is a tool and it’s intention is to give you starting points, leads, places that may be distressed. They don’t claim to be a data clearing house for housing trend so why are you holding them to that standard, they are net fishing, they know it and most of their customers know it, you are supposed to the legwork from there. It is for finding repos, not predicting the future.
