You've been buying mortgage notes for a little while and are comfortable with the practice. However, you've noticed that there are a lot of pre-foreclosure homes out there with mortgages on them too. This is a large section of the mortgage note industry that remains untapped, but how can you get in on the profits with a defaulted property in the mix?

It is possible to buy the mortgage note on a defaulted property. When you use this method of real estate investment you still begin with the normal means of contacting the homeowner in pre-foreclosure through direct mail.

After you've spoken with the homeowner and they've agreed to sell to you, you'll have the homeowner under contract to sell their home to you. This is even though you are going to buy the note on their mortgage. You'll just have them sign the contract so they are locked in with you, and the homeowner doesn't turn around to try and sell the house to someone else while you are working with the bank. Once, you buy the note the contract becomes irrelevant.

How to Approach the Bank

Go into the bank and ask them if they would consider a Short Sale to you. A short sale involves buying the actual real estate property at a reduced price and the bank writes off the remainder of the mortgage. Usually they'll say yes and begin to give you all kinds of information to turn in for final approval on a short sale. Then, you can come up with, 'Hey, wouldn't it just be easier if I bought the note from you?"

If the bank knows how to do a note sale on a defaulted mortgage, then they'll usually jump on your suggestion because it is so much easier to sell the note than get the process of a short sale through their system.

Once You Buy the Mortgage Note

After some negotiation the bank agrees to give you a note purchase on this property and they accept your offer of say, $70,000 for their mortgage of $115,000.

By purchasing the note to the property you basically become the bank. You buy the right to collect the remaining $115,000 left on the defaulted mortgage. That's crazy, right? Nope.

Once you have the mortgage note you have a few options to move forward. You as the mortgage note owner could continue on with the foreclosure and kick the homeowners out of their home, not very nice since you did approach them first. Or you could get a "Deed in Lieu of Forclosure".

The Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure basically means that the property owner gives you the deed to the property when they can't make payments on the mortgage. When you first approach the homeowners about helping them out of their property, you'll want to let them know that you aren't going to save their mortgage you're just trying to give them a clean escape from having that defaulted mortgage on their credit.

This means that you aren't going through with the foreclosure and the homeowner gets out without having a foreclosure mark on their record because they are just giving you the deed to the property.

The process of buying the mortgage note on a defaulted mortgage adds one more step to the basic process involved in a short sale. However, it's usually quicker, easier and lets you get your piece of real estate investment property.

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