Reply #9: It takes capital to capitalize on foreclosures

[Egalitarian]

My understanding is that it is a buyers market if you can bid on foreclosures on the courthouse steps. You must have cash to bid, unless it's a government loan I think. My father does this and has 20+ properties. IMO he's living large on the pitfalls of others. I started to go in with him when he first started, but we had philosophical differences on how to proceed. Properties going into foreclosure are listed in the paper of the county seat. I had the idea to draft a letter stating an interest in helping he foreclosee out of their present situation, by buying directly from them before the property goes fully into foreclosure. This saves the new buyer from bidding against others and helps the present owner by preventing a foreclosure and the credit scar that comes with this. I wanted to put cash into the pockets of the former based on a percentage of the equity in the house so that they could downsize and hopefully have some money to stay on their feet. Then, I wanted to "polish" the house and resell it making a small profit off my work in repainting, recarpeting, roofing, etc. If it generally worked this way then it would be a nice way to enter home ownership at an affordable cost. Unfortunately, at least in GA, most of the buyers were not planning on reselling, but rather put minimal dollars into the property and opt for renting. Trickle up economics for the most part from my experience.