If you are an impulse buyer, then it is not recommended that you attend a real estate foreclosure auction to get a deal on a house (either to live in or to invest in). Auctions give a sense of urgency worse than the bladder after swallowing a two-quart bottle of cola. If you’re serious about buying property in a particular area, you’d better watch HUD’s foreclosure listings like a hawk.

Make the mouse click

To find HUD foreclosures in your desired area, you must first go to the Housing and Urban Development home page on hud.gov. This will take you to a series of links on how to bid on a HUD foreclosed home and what is (and is not) included in a HUD home. More importantly, there is a list of states for HUD’s foreclosure list in those states.

For example, let’s say you want to see all HUD foreclosure listings in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. You click on the Pennsylvania link and you will most likely get a warning that you are leaving the HUD home page to another website. This is nothing to be alarmed about. Click “Go to the requested website”.

This will take you to the Pennsylvania HUD approved broker, Hooks Van Holm. You see there’s a long list of towns and cities in Pennsylvania, but it’s certainly not a complete list of all the towns and cities in the state. These happen to be the only ones with a HUD foreclosure property on them. You scroll down to find Lancaster and click the link. You can also breathe a sigh of relief that your hometown isn’t on the list (if you live in Pennsylvania).

bidding process

You bid on homes on a HUD foreclosure listing the same way you would bid on an item on eBay. You have a lot of time to decide and you are not pressured. You need to inspect the property yourself and have it reviewed by a home inspector. Never make an offer on a HUD property without seeing it.

The first ten days that a HUD property goes “auction” is reserved for bids from previous owners (in case some miracle happens in their financial lives) or people who really want to live in the house. As of the eleventh day, bids are opened to real estate investors or “pinballs”.