Where to Look

If you are looking to find a bargain on a home, whether you want to live in yourself or to resell it for maximum profit, it is important that you look in the right places.  Figuring out where to look can be time consuming and frustrating.

Looking for bargain homes through the regular methods—real estate agents and listings—can be unsuccessful.  This is how everyone else is looking for a home and sellers on the market are generally trying to make as much money for their homes as possible.

If you do choose to look for a home on the real estate market a good rule of thumb is to look for desperate sellers.  A desperate seller is someone who wants to sell his or her house immediately and will accept just about any offer for it.  Desperate sellers include homeowners that bought a new home before they sold their old one and are now stuck with two mortgages, recent divorcees and people who have been transferred. 

Homes that need a lot of work and renovation may have desperate sellers as well.  If you are willing to put the work into these “handyman’s special” homes they can also be a great deal.

You should also look for bargain homes through bank sales and auctions.  When a bank or lender forecloses on a home because the homeowner did not comply with the mortgage or with the deed of trust they sell the properties or put them up for auction.  Homes are usually sold or auctioned off for significantly lower than the market price as the banks and lenders are only worried about covering the amount of unpaid debt and not about profits.  Therefore, by buying a home through a bank sale or auction you can save tens of thousands of dollars.