Foreclosure Sales

Be wary of the schmucks who try to intimidate you at the sales.

I've been curious about these as well... I think there are auctions held at the court house or something? Is that where the schmucks are who try to intimidate people?

Can you actually get a good deal? I heard if you are lucky, you'd get a 5% discount. But for that discount, you take the risk that the place is in terrible condition, etc, since you essentially buy it as-is.

I thought you'd do a lot better than 5% but probably, yes, you'd take it as is. I'd start googling foreclosures or co-op foreclosures, nyc & see what you find. You can probably do real well but if you don't know what you're doing you can probably lose your shirt.

Well, if you really only make 5%, or even 10%... you'd have to flip it FSBO to realize a real gain... else the transaction costs would cancel everything out and only the broker would make money.

#3--if you buy in foreclosure for a 5% discount, you're a schmuck. don't know where you "heard" that from. last sale I attended, the place went for 2/3 of a comparably priced unit's recent resale. of course, there is risk involved in buying in foreclosure if you are not in the know.

What borough was that in #7?

manhattan

I placed a bid on a property in pre-foreclosure. The owner bought the property for $615K last year. My offer was $425K, then was raised to $440K. I was able to view the property before placing my bid. I should know if my offer is accepted by the end of this week.

#10..where was this? In NYC? And also, how did you find out about it? I really want to take a look at these options.

go down to the New York/King's/Queens/Bronx/Richmond County courthouse(s) and ask to see the Lis Pendens files. Its public information and it reflects pre-foreclosures. Or you can pay some exhorbitant fee like to property shark to do the same thing you could do for free. As for foreclosure sales, they're listed in the newspaper like everyday. by the time it gets to a sale, good luck b/c there's an entire industry that does that.

I prefer tax lien certificates. guaranteed 18% interest (in NJ) and in NYC can actually buy the property. But very time consuming.

The property is in Queens. I found it on the Craigslist. The owner was so desperate that he left some clues in his ad telling about his situation. Go to the Craigslist and do a seach wit the keyword "foreclosure", you should find several ones. As #12 pointed you could also use PropertyShark.com or Realtytrac.com. Buying a property via pre-foreclosure or foreclosure is a long process. You definitely need to be very patient. In order to learn more about the foreclosure process, please check this site, it is a good starter:
http://www.foreclosure.com/questions.html