Before buying a Foreclosure, check the comps, for free!

Investors who want to buy foreclosures need to make sure that they always do their research. First and foremost, that always begins with checking the comparable sales in the neighborhood. It means looking at square footage, number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, lot size, garage (or not), and the age of the home, amongst other things.

While I personally believe that using the MLS is the best and most accurate method to check comps, sometimes that's not always possible. Maybe you don't have a realtor friend to check these for you, or perhaps you don't have a realtor on your team.

In such cases, a great free site to use is Zillow.com
Zillow gives you a very quick estimate of a home's worth, and while not entirely accurate, it certainly beats guesswork! Intersting to note that Zillow has entered into a new partnership with Yahoo, the massive web portal. Hopefully this partnership allows Zillow to offer even more accurate comps as they moved forward.

Foreclosures: How to profit from a cooling Real Estate Market

Foreclosures can be a great way to profit from cooling Real Estate markets across the country. Robert Kiyosaki recently wrote an article outlining how he sees the coooling real estate market having an affect on both investors and speculators.

Foreclosure Lists: be careful where you get your data

Foreclosure list providers are often the best way to get your data if you're marketing to preforeclosure properties. These list providers are very much smaller operations. They focus on select counties in a small geographic area, so they can provide their clients with the best, most recent data.

While there are many national list providers, unfortunately, large portions of their data can be old, and out of date. This article discusses many of the problems that national foreclosure list providers face: many times they list foreclosure properties for sale, when they have, in fact, already been sold.

Our recommendation when selecting a list provider is to go with a smaller, local company, that is sending people down to the courthouse on a daily basis. For a list of local data providers, check the toolbar on the left, or visit www.SaveMeFromForeclosure.com

Foreclosures aren't the only deals: check out HUD

Foreclosure can be a great way to finding deals if you're an investor. Even better can be finding deals in the preforeclosure status, and marketing to those homeowners. You should offer these homeowners a number of solutions if they're in preforeclosure.

However, HUD can be a great source of finding deals as well. Read the article for more information on finding deals through HUD.

Good luck, and happy investing!