ZT: start to auction

thanks for remembering me. i named myself "大家幫我買房" to remind myself as a student here forever, and to show others i'm just the one here looking for help. I never expected someone could remember who i'm. therefore, when I saw my name in your post, i'm so thrilled.

therefore, i would like share my experience on the auction with you. there are different types of auctions, it could be a tax sale, a mortgage sale by sheriff, or could be an auction by the property owner or banks.

because of different types of auction, you could have different approaches. most important, is whether a sale secured by title companies.

for sheriff sale, no title company service provided, you have to take the risks. here are some steps i usually take:

1) get a full list of the sales, mostly, there are 300-500 properties in the list, nearly half of them would stay when it forecloses.

2) collect information. On the foreclosure list, you can find the home owners name, banks name, attorney's name, parcel number, property addresses, and the priciple owed. it's okay just with these information, but if you can get all full letters from the attorney to the home owner, and the sheriff papers, that will be very helpful.

3) find the targets! based on the properties and your ability, choose your targets, I usually choose all of them. you don't have to do that, but you have to choose at least 10 properties, if you just choose 1 or 2 properties, it's a waste of time.

4) title search! do a thorough research on the liens of the target properties. find out the seniority of the liens, and all the amounts of the precedence liens

5) site visit! you have to do site visit. there's no exception. since having hundreds properties in mind, i have to take many photos too. I know some rehab myself, if you don't, you'd better take your contractors with you to estimate the rehab costs

6) vacant or not! it's very important to distinguish whether or not it's vacant, there are totally different strategy and different appraisal methods to bid

7) if not vacant, ask the owner or tenants to let you in, I tried 100% time, with 90% sucessful rate to enter

8) if vacant, try all the windows, doors, back yard, and get in. I always try, with 20% chance to get in. Basically, there always ways to get in

9) do appraisal yourself! this is most important

10) call the attorney, try to settle down preforeclosure and make the property stay, this is the best for you and bank to win-win.

11) study your competitors. most bids, say, 90% bids are always made by those 10% bidders. know them well

12) make a bidding plan for each property, more important, stick to your plan, never ever bid 10% more than your plan. my experience showed that the first plan always the most accurate

13) don't bid too much with those 10% frequent bidders. For me, all those frequent bidders are my friends. I never bid to bleed with them, I always give up if they insist.

14) if you really want the property, buy it from the successful bidders.

15) if bank takes it back, contact the attorney directly immediately, you could buy it post foreclosure at a good price before the REO process kicked off.

16) never ever fall in love with any properties. Love is blind, you need the vision and control during the whole process of these.

ok, I just wrote all these in a hurry. more details could follow if you are interested in. thanks for reading