Buying and reselling foreclosures is one of the best ways to use the current recession to your economic advantage.
When searching for HUD foreclosures, you must understand that the Department of Housing and Urban Development merely handles the disposal of FHA and VA backed home repossessions.
They do not want to keep a large inventory of these homes, and try to dispose of them quickly, often taking much less than the mortgage due on them.
You can get a free list of these homes by calling your local HUD office, or by contacting a realtor and asking for a HUD foreclosure list.
These will be free to you, but the list may be somewhat outdated by the time you receive it, as these listings sell rapidly.
The quickest and most efficient way to get these listings is to go to the web and search for HUD foreclosure listings.
You will find several hundred sites that offer to sell these lists to you.
Many of these sites will give you a free seven day trial period, giving you enough time to peruse the offerings.
You may be interested only in companies that offer listings in your area.
You will find quite a few of the companies will send you a tailored list to suit your needs.
Many of these companies have up to a million listings, some provide pictures along with addresses and mortgage balance.
You will also find companies that update their lists daily, which will be very valuable in saving your time not investigating a property already sold.
By the time your free trial period is up, you should have some idea if the company that sold you the list serves your needs.
If it does, go ahead and become a member for a nominal fee.
Your membership can be cancelled at any time, but remember, if the list helps you buy only one property for resale, the profit from this makes the membership fee paid only a drop in the bucket.