Housing prices are going down no doubt. If you are not patient and not willing to wait for the prices to tank more, you might check out real estate auctions. Find an auction near you here.
http://auctioncalendar.auctioneers.org/
On that site, you can search for recently completed transactions too, so you can get a sense of how much below asking prices recent transactions have been.
So it turns out that the auction will be postoned for one month because the owners miraculously convinced the lenders that they will get financing in another month.Â
The lenders also said that the interest rate goes from 10.5% to 17% when the property is in default, which will drive up the amount owed by 17%/12 percent this month alone. And of course, they promise the auction won’t be delayed again.
This was not what I wanted to hear.
On a positive note, I wrote some of the investors in the local REI club and got some responses. Maybe I can find an EB to guide me along this process.  Marching on…
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Talk about loan sharks.Â
One lender wanted 5 points down and 17%, and a private lender wanted 2 points down, 15%. I did find one that would give me no point down and 13.49%, but that’s unconfirmed until tomorrow. I would happily take that loan.
But until I sign a contract, I have no financing. If you are reading this and have some ideas of where else I can get financing, please write and let me know!
The auction is finally coming on the 10th of this month, but I still don’t have funding. I can put down the 5% but in Palm Beach county, you need to come up with the rest of the 95% by the end of the day. Typically conventional lender won’t lend with out a sales contract, which of course, you don’t get until after you have paid the winning bid price.
I’ve gone through the newspapers looking for people who would lend short term loan for this, left phone messages with a bunch of them, actually one guy picked up (11:30pm!), and we’ll talk again tomorrow. It’s coming down to the wire; I hope I can find a money partner, or else no deal. 
Two weeks ago, when I was at foreclosure #1, the owner told me that they had refinanced the house. I thought that was a done deal.
Today I remembered that the summary judgment in court on the property was supposed to be this week, so I called the plaintiff lawyer to get an update. It turns out that the owners didn’t pay off their debt yet, so there will indeed be a foreclosure on the property. I am in luck! In another week, I should find out the foreclosure auction date and in the mean time, I’ll have to figure out how much repair work the house needs, but from the comps in the area, I have a lot of room for error on this one, so it’s pretty much a go.
Exciting times ahead…
Since pre-foreclosure #1 fell through, it’s back to the drawing board. I have found the online website for miami-dade county clerk’s website which lists the upcoming foreclosures auctions on the steps of the court house.
After a little bit of research, I wasn’t able to find such a listing for Palm Beach. I made a few phone calls to the PB County Clerk’s office again, got transferred a few times, and found out that they actually publish it in a specific newspaper called Daily Business Review. This paper isn’t sold in the grocery stores. I tracked down their website and found retail locations that sold them.Â
At the Barnes and Nobles where I found them, there’s probably less than 5 copies left. It’s definitely not a widely publicized newspaper. And it’s behind the cashier’s counter, so you really have to know what you are looking for to find it.Â
Now the next step is to figure out how much discount (if any) the properties at the auctions have been sold for!Â
Over the past two weeks, I have been pretty excited about a pre-foreclosure property that’s on the inner-coastal waterway, but as a beginning investor, one thing I overlooked was to first make sure that the owners are motivated.
Even though their $300k loan has ballooned to $322k in less than 8 months (10.5% rate, 15yr fixed), the value of the land is still worth enough for the owners to refinance and get another loan to pay off their current loan.Â
The owners have at least two law suits against them for lack of payment. But with the new mortgage they took out, they should be able to pay off all the debt. They did this once before in June 2005 to pay off their original mortgage of 200k and another loan for 15k. But with the way they are going, they’ll probably default on their new higher balance loan in a few month.
I will keep tabs on this one, but I think that particular unit is a lost cause for now.