Buying a foreclosed on property can be a very difficult process and time consuming. Nevertheless I will explain the process so that you have an understanding as to how it works and if buying foreclosure properties is right for you.
First and foremost there are websites out there that you can pay for a membership to be in that will locate foreclosure properties for you.
To find out what properties have been foreclosed on you would need to look through the legal sections of the newspaper. In this section will be statements of court appearances or sheriff's sales. You need to look at each one to see if the sheriff's department is auctioning off a property or evicting someone from the premises.
Once you've located these properties you will be able to know what properties are being foreclosed on. Now just because a property is being foreclosed on doesn't mean that the current residence are not living there still. Many times when a person can't or stops paying the mortgage they have months before they can legally be made to vacate the premises. Because of this it is very hard to see the property. Most owners won't let you in. First of all they may be ashamed of their situation but also it doesn't help them to speed up the process that will ultimately be evicting them from their property.
Other than asking to see the house or driving by you may not get much of an opportunity to know much about the property you want to purchase.
In the newspaper in the legal listing will be a court date that the property will be auctioned off at. You have to show up at this court hearing in order to bid on the property. Once the bidding begins the highest bidder will take the property. Before you leave the hearing, if you are the winning bidder, you will be required to put a non refundable down payment of 10% of your bidding price. You then have 7 days to pay the rest. If you do not do so in time you will lose your down payment and not receive the property.
When you win the bid on the property there is no guarantee that you will be receiving the title to the home. There may be leans against the home that you would be required to clean up before you would receive the home. Basically you could wind up paying for someone elses debt. This is to be expected though because in essence you will have purchased the home under its assessed value.
You also will be purchasing the property in 'as is' condition. This means they have no idea what may be wrong with the property. You buy it as is and have to deal with bringing it up to code or cleaning it up or repairing whatever may be wrong with it. Unfortuneatly when a property owner knows they are going to lose their property the tend to not care about the condition of the property anymore. Many foreclosures wind up being in very poor condition when they are auctioned off.