Real estate investors make their profits by buying properties at low prices and selling them at higher prices.  This puts foreclosed homes at the forefront of most real estate investor’s buying list.  When buying foreclosed, REO or bank owned homes, you can usually purchase at below market value saving between 20 and 50 percent. 

The real challenge of investing in foreclosures is knowing where to look for foreclosed property listings.  There are many websites that offer foreclosure listings for a fee, usually a subscription to their service is required, and there are also a few that offer free lists of foreclosures.  These free lists can be beneficial at times, but they also have their disadvantages and are generally misleading.

The truth is, there really aren’t any completely free websites providing foreclosure information.  Most of the sites allow for a free trail, but you will still be required to give up your credit card information and be sure you cancel your account before the trail is over or they automatically start charging you for their service.  So be aware that if you are going to do a free trail to have access to a “free list” of foreclosed homes, it is only a temporary situation.

The best resource for a free list of foreclosed homes is to look into realtors in your area that deal in foreclosures and real estate owned homes.  Most realtors will have a free list of these properties available on their personal or company website.  In some states, with multiple branches of the same real estate agencies, the agencies will provide a full list of all the foreclosures for the state, that they can list and sell.  There is one disadvantage, usually, no one agent has access to ALL the foreclosure listings, but most provide a comprehensive free list.

One downfall of websites that offer free lists of foreclosed homes is that the information is available to anyone and may be out of date.  Depending on how well the Webmaster updates their site, you could totally fall in love with a foreclosed home only to find out that it sold a month earlier.  This too is where dealing with an agent, who keeps their database up to date, can be a benefit.