Would you buy a house for $150,000 if you could buy the house next door in the same condition for $100,000? If you are a smart investor, I'm going to bet you wouldn't. If you are just beginning as an investor and need information, how are you going to get it and how much are you going to pay? THE SAME CONCEPT APPLIES! You can easily get a basic understanding of the stages of foreclosure, how to purchase property at each stage of the process and ways to obtain financing for your purchase for free or at a very nominal cost.

Many people want to make it in the real estate world but think they lack the funds or the credit. They stick to the nine to five job knowing it is safe and a guaranteed income. If they knew some simple tricks they could say goodbye to the daily grind by investing in pre-foreclosures. There is money to be made in this marketing niche. Many novice real estate investors make the mistake of trying to buy anything and everything on the market. The more experienced investor knows you need a marketing niche to succeed. Pre-foreclosures are one of the most profitable markets available. With so many homes facing repossession in today's market, homeowners are only to happy to sell their homes.

The foreclosed homes are ones offered for sale as REO's, or real estate owned properties. These properties usually hit the market by way of a sheriff's sale. The competition can be fierce and intimidating at these auctions. You can beat the competition to the punch by looking for homes which have not yet hit the auction block.The key to buying real estate is to find motivated sellers. There is no seller as motivated as the one who is losing their home. They do not want the banks breathing down their necks. They can not make the payments. They just want to get out from under the debt and go on with their lives. For someone to come in and say they can make the problem go away would be a blessing.

This is where you, the investor comes in. You can negotiate a deal with the banks to keep the house from going to the auction. The banks do not want to take back any home if they can help it. This gives you an edge. You can ask for discounts from the banks when negotiating these deals. Many of them are too happy to give them. As you become more familiar with what some of these discounts are, you can create more and more equity in the properties you rescue in pre-foreclosure. Banks know that were they to take back every property which is facing foreclosure, they would be out of business. These finance companies are under pressure to liquidate bad debt. They are willing to look at any deal to keep from having a bad debt on their books.

The equity you have by investing in a pre-foreclosure is substantially larger than any other real estate deal. This automatically gives you a positive cash flow. By re-selling the property you can achieve amazing results. The smart investor will invest in pre-foreclosures before any other marketable property because of the potential profit. By investing in pre-foreclosures you do not need a million dollar bank account and excellent credit. Although these assets can help, you can still negotiate deals without them. Researching properties can uncover many homes that are distressed. This is marketing niche that can yield thousands with only a few hundred dollars invested.