I need help my husband and I are just starting to look for a house in the area and we wanted to look at foreclosed and bank owned first. How do we go about looking at them and even buying them? We live in Kentucky and I don't know what the rules are about this if anybody knows please help... :confused:

Contact the banks in your area and ask when they have auctions.

Well first don't think you will actually find any of the 200 or 400 dollar homes like you see advertised on TV.

Normally what happens, is you follow the legal notices in your local news papers. They will tell you when and where property will be sold at acution for the ones that are forclosed on, or being sold by bankruptcy court and so on, In most areas I have lived they hold the auctions on the county court house steps.

They will expect cash or approved check at time of sell. Which is normally the problem most people have, since they don't have a large credit line at the bank or the funds to pay cash for the home.

So unless some larger company buys them I would say that in general about 70 percent or more are just bought by the bank or mortgage company itself. Then they list the home with their real estate company at a price near apprased value to make as much money as they can.

The trick to finding one of the cheaper homes, is to find one that does not have a high mortgage, or the bankruptcy sales and have the cash or a credit line to buy them.

The last one I bought from the bank itself, was a bankruptcy, the house was a three bedroom brick home on an acre of land, The owners went bankrupt and lost it. The house appraised for about 120,000 . Lower home values this home in Atlanta would be in the 300 to 400,000 area.

But anyway, we researched it and found that the outstanding mortgage at bankruptcy was about 60,000 but the first two years after the bankruptcy, they had turned down offers from 80,000 to 95,000.
But this is 5 years after it was forclosed at bankruptcy and they had not had any offers in the past 2 years. They put a new roof on it, and redid the cabinets trying to sell it. But since they had turned down the other offers no one was interested because of low house sales.

We came in and bought it for the 60,000 and by using the same agent and real estate company that they bank used to list it, we worked out a deal to lower the commission on the sale.

But it took several trips to the court house to research what was owed on the houses when they sold, looking at and making offers on a dozen other houses and not getting them, before we got this one.

In another I bought a old home that had a some living illegally for about 14,000 dollars. We put a new coat of paint in and out, all new appliances and a new roof ( very cheaply). A similar home in that area is listed for 50,000 now. ( older 2 bedroom frame home)

Also if you can't afford to pay cash for one at a sale, talk to a local real estate agent, since most banks list their homes after they take them back so they are easier to show and sale.
also check with the agents for listings that are several years old, or where someone is about to lose the home, or where someone is about to move and need to sell.

In canada you can check out http://www.foreclosures.ca/

Knucklez