[EternalEnigma21]

here's where I can help. I bought a foreclosed home a year ago. My wife is a realtor and she and her partner specialize in foreclosures. I'm renewing my license in order to help them with the abundance of bpo's (broker price opinion reports) that they've been doing.

Most foreclosed homes are available for inspection. These days banks are starting to even offer a 1 to 1.5% commission to an agent to hold a few open houses on auctioned homes, and if the house doesn't sell at auction they get a regular listing commission to list the house normally.

I don't know where the southeast is, but here in Northern VA you can get pretty good deals on foreclosed homes. Most don't go past the auctions, though. REOs are pretty uncommon if there has been an actual auction take place. There are banks taking a beating right now.

I think there's going to be an end to all this within the next 2 years, as the only banks and institutions able to take on the losses are the largest ones and will need the federal govt's help. They'll get it. I have many family members buying rental properties and we're looking at purchasing a shell of a home in a great area right now, in which we can do most of the work.

I think its a good time to buy the right property. My home was bough for 93K under the appraised value, and our lender even had it re-appraised at their expense to verify. That was a year ago, and there are even better deals right now if you're handy.