Posted by John Behle on March 16, 2006 at 14:34:37:
I’m not sure what you are looking for. Most banks and financial institutions have repos. Generally a “Repo” would describe personal property they have had to take back like cars, jewelry or anything else they have loaned against. You get the lists from the individual institutions.
As far as foreclosures, they also have their own lists, though there are some companies that compile foreclosure lists. Carefully research any potential list sources. Sometimes they are very outdated, very limited in geographic area or they are heavily cherry picked.
As opposed to buying lists, you can look in the legal papers or legal sections of the general papers. You’ll find foreclosures there as well as auctions of personal property, storage units, etc.
The best lists come by having a relationship with the banks and take some time to establish. Many times they will say they have no foreclosures or repos because they do not want to be deluged by everyone that just took a weekend seminar. Sometimes they will say they only have a couple and will toss you a bone. Sometimes they will only toss you junk they have no other buyers for, They want to try to “pre-qualify” you as a potential buyer. Sometimes they toss you something that could be worthwhile but only one or two to see if you follow up.
When you get a relationship or they feel you can be a real resource, then they pull out their whole list and the tone can change from “what me? I don’t have any foreclosures.” to “Help me - Please!”
If a banker appears to eager or readily gives out lists, they can end up wasting all of their time with people that have little ability to follow through. They also do not want to “air their dirty laundry” in public. I’ve seen institutions change their tune overnight also. One institution was very difficult to deal with and would tell you they had no foreclosures. Then Standard and Poors dropped their bond rating because of all of their “REO” property and they went wild trying to get rid of it.