I am interested in buying a foreclosed or bank owned property. However I find it getting information is not that easy. I checked the Sunday papers each week but they only list locations, no pictures or detailed information is given. How can I become better informed?

There is a process that a property goes through before it becomes a bank owned which might help you to understand a little better how to approach the search. When a mortgage loan goes into default, the process by which the bank sells the property is a foreclosure auction. That is probably the auctions where you only see an address because the lender and the auctioneer have limited information since they do not have access to the interior of the property. The property is sold at the auction and an “ as is” condition subject to tenants and occupants. The lender generally will bid in the full amount of the debt and it generally will become the owner at the auction because if the mortgage was originated anytime after 2005 or so the amount of the debt is probably more than the property is worth. After the bank becomes the owner it will evict the occupants and take care of any health code violations. It will then generally place the property with a realtor who will offer the property for sale in the usual way through advertisements and/or the Internet. The realtor generally indicated that the property is bank owned so as to communicate to potential buyers that they can probably get a pretty good deal. So this would require you to check the ads for properties in the community that you would be interested in living in see if any are advertised as bank owned property. Sometimes there will be auctions by the developer, such as the auction by at Longwood Towers which was advertised in the Courant. In that type of auction you do get an opportunity to see the property that you will be bidding on but it is limited to that particular condominium building. When a lender like Fannie Mae has a lot of inventory they may engage nationwide auction houses to auction the houses after the lender has taken possession. In this type of auction you do get pictures of the houses and addresses and there will be times and dates for open houses so you can inspect prior to bidding on the property. Organizations such as www.hudsonandmarshall.com ,www.ushomeauction.com and www.williamsauction.com specialize in running those kinds of auctions. You need to be very careful about the terms of the auction and about your ability to get financing if you become a successful bidder at the auction because generally you do not have much time to close following the auction.

If you have questions about this or any other real estate matter, please contact Tom Bennett at (617) 531-6574 or tvb@barronstad.com.