REO lists are an invaluable tool for every foreclosure real estate investor. If you are an investor looking to buy bank-owned foreclosed properties, these lists can serve as your pipeline for leads. Most subscription-based foreclosure listings services are updated daily or weekly, so you will never have a shortage of leads to chase.

REO, for the uninitiated, stands for "Real Estate Owned". What it basically means is that if a property in foreclosure is up for sale at an auction but nobody buys it, the bank holding the foreclosing mortgage will automatically take possession of the property, and the homeowners who dwell therein will be forced to vacate it if they haven't already.

The advantages of investing in REOs are that you don't have to deal with homeowners, you don't have to enter into a bidding war at an auction. You can simply contact the bank and submit an offer to purchase the vacant property.

But not every REO property is automatically a deal worth investing in. You have to research all of the details about the property in order to make an informed decision about whether or not it would be a profitable buy: How much would you be buying the property for? How much would you need to spend on repairs:? How much would the property sell for after repairs?

A typical REO database will contain information about all aspects of the property's foreclosure history as well as the property's characteristics, to help you make that decision. Some of the information contained therein includes:

1. Property address.

2. What type of property it is. (eg- single family home, condo, townhouse, multi-unit apartment building, etc.)

3. The year the property was built.

4. Configuration of the property (bedrooms, square footage, etc.)

5. Unpaid real estate property taxes levied against the property.

6. The balance due on the mortgage - this serves as the basis for the minimum amount the bank would be willing to sell the property for.

7. When the house was "REO'ed". This is the date that the last auction took place at which nobody bought the property and thus the property ownership was transferred to the bank.

8. CMAs - Comparative market analysis - to give you an idea of how much the property might be worth.

9. Date last sold - When was the property bought by the last homeowner before it was foreclosued, and how much was the sale amount at that time.

10. The bank's contact information.

Some listing services might even include pictures of the property.

More info on your stop foreclosure information search:

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