13 Best Ways How to Find Foreclosures to Get a List of Bank-Owned Properties in Rhode Island (Free & Paid Methods)
In this guide, you’ll discover the actionable ways of seeking foreclosure and pre-foreclosure investment opportunities for home flippers, property wholesalers, and landlords.
We’ll discuss ways to grow your network of professionals to get referrals from, along with readily accessible resources that are available both physically and virtually.
I’m Bob Vieira, the creator and proprietor of Universal Short Sales, a rapidly expanding short sale processing company working nationwide.
Let’s get started.
PropTech Platforms
Real Estate Bees
Real Estate Bees (REB) is an online platform designed for industry professionals looking to take their real estate business to the next level. It provides access to robust tech stack, statistical data, comprehensive informational resources, and much more.
This includes pre-foreclosure and REO leads for real estate agents, investors, and wholesalers. All the leads are strictly generated via inbound marketing channels unlike data scraping, aggregation, and other outbound methods used by most other platforms.
Delinquent property owners from all over the US utilize the REB platform to find reputable house buyer companies in Rhode Island who’d be interested in acquiring their distressed property — so they are highly motivated.
As a user of the platform, you can get access to these distressed properties, submitted by other industry professionals, absolutely FREE! You simply need to sign up to DealAlert, which is an advanced, yet free, property matching engine developed by Real Estate Bees.
In addition, you can also access distressed properties, submitted directly by property owners, by purchasing distressed seller leads through our advanced pay-per-lead real estate marketplace.
Other Platforms
In addition to Real Estate Bees, a myriad of alternative property investing apps and lead generation software for real estate investors are available to you.
Many platforms focus on supplying information about distressed properties and their owners — pre-foreclosures and repossessed homes.
Most of these applications support integrations with various CRM for real estate investors.
The experts at Real Estate Bees have diligently scrutinized a range of real estate wholesaling tools to help you understand the pros and cons of each and how they can help you.
The following featured tools stand out in their ability to pinpoint foreclosed homes, pre-foreclosures, and various motivated seller types:
For those specifically seeking pre-foreclosure properties, the following tools stand out:
Foreclosure.com
One of the best REO search engines you can utilize to find foreclosed properties is Foreclosure.com, one of the most prominent tools in this area.
Subscription choices differ, and the prevailing membership option typically hovers around the $40 monthly mark.
What sets Foreclosure.com apart are two key factors. First and foremost, it prides itself on outstanding user-friendliness.
Upon enrolling in the membership, you are granted access to a clear-cut list of leads. It’s easy to find and process, looking for leads matching your criteria.
The second noteworthy feature is Foreclosure.com’s map functionality built to help you search foreclosures by address.
By clicking on a specific state, you get comprehensive data on all the foreclosures within the selected region.
The organized and user-friendly interface makes it an ideal platform for anyone engaged in finding foreclosures online.
Now, let’s explore another online marketplace that not only shows where to find cheap foreclosed homes for sale but also offers you functionality to buy homes right there, online.
Auction.com
Auction.com reigns as the country’s largest platform focusing on online real estate auctions.
It distinguishes itself through its considerable scale, earning it a top spot among the best places to find foreclosures.
Auction.com offers a diverse array of assets — from property short sale deals to repossessed houses to land and even personal property.
Enhancing its allure as one of the best websites to find foreclosures, Auction.com distinguishes itself with a distinctive pricing model — notably, the absence of a monthly membership fee.
Instead, participants engage in a bidding process, and successful bids require payment of a buyer’s premium to Auction.com. That’s the method by which they generate their income.
However, it’s imperative to exercise caution in property auctions, as not all provide ample opportunities to comprehensively check every box on your property investment due diligence checklist.
Zillow
The standout name in our discussion on how to look up foreclosures is undeniably Zillow.
As a globally recognized company, Zillow has become a go-to resource for many investors engaged in finding houses to wholesale or flipping properties.
While it’s widely used by aspiring homeowners for finding Rhode Island property listings for personal use, Zillow should not be overlooked in the realm of getting a foreclosed home as an investment project.
It’s easy to use because of its simple yet functional interface. When exploring how to find foreclosures in Rhode Island on Zillow, just choose the city or county you’re interested in, and adjust the filters.
You can easily select “foreclosures” from the dropdown menu or explore pre-foreclosures. Zillow even provides an option to search by auctions.
Rhode Island Multiple Listing Services (MLS)
While most investors prefer seeking off-market properties, MLS still remains an effective tool to search foreclosures. But to be able to utilize an MLS, possessing an active real estate license is a prerequisite.
If you lack one, an alternative is engaging a real estate agent, who can locate foreclosures on MLS for you in exchange for a fee or another arrangement.
Each Rhode Island multiple listing service boasts its unique features and interface, but the procedure to get REO listings is the same everywhere — by using the “My search” tab.
By clicking on the tab, you will get a dropdown menu with various options. To find foreclosures on MLS according to your criteria, select from pre-foreclosures, foreclosures, or short sales, and adjust other filters.
For instance, if you’re seeking Rhode Island single family homes with four bedrooms or more, narrow down your search accordingly.
Rhode Island Real Estate Wholesalers
A powerful avenue you can use to look for foreclosed homes involves collaborating with real estate wholesalers in Rhode Island.
These experts are a valuable resource as they specialize in obtaining exclusive off-market deals directly from sellers at discounted rates. They cater to Rhode Island property investors in search of lucrative opportunities.
A significant number of investors lean towards finding wholesale real estate deals because wholesalers handle the entirety of the search and negotiation process on their behalf.
Wholesalers secure properties under contract, obtaining what is termed equitable interest.
This legal standing empowers them to assign the contract, essentially transferring their stake in the property to you, the investor, for a predetermined fee.
Notably, wholesalers orchestrate the deal without formally closing on the property.
For example, having successfully secured a distressed home seller’s property under contract at $100,000, a wholesaler markets it to a home flipper or landlord for $120,000.
The end buyer steps into the wholesaler’s role in the deal, buys the house for $100,000, and compensates the wholesaler with what is termed an assignment fee, totaling $20k.
Hence, the end buyer’s total payment for the property amounts to 120k dollars, allowing the wholesaler to earn their margin through the assignment fee, denoted as 20k dollars in this instance.
You can delve deeper into this strategy by exploring the beginner’s guide on how to start wholesaling houses with no money and further review the intricacies of wholesaling real estate in Rhode Island.
Wholesalers know how to generate motivated seller leads on a regular basis. They often have a few houses under contract and can get you a list of foreclosures in your area.
This enables them to efficiently cater to returning clients in need of finding fix and flip properties.
For those embarking on house flipping as a career and looking forward to cultivating a network of professionals, wholesalers emerge as pivotal partners to prioritize.
Rhode Island Real Estate Agents
Establishing connections with REO agents is also an excellent approach you can use to get a foreclosed homes list.
Within the realm of real estate, the term REO, or Real Estate-Owned, denotes the stage at which a bank has concluded the foreclosure process.
It’s essential to grasp that banks are fundamentally in the note business and not real estate business: they are highly interested in selling the property quickly, even at a discount.
Consequently, after the foreclosure, the bank entrusts the property to a listing agent, often referred to as an REO agent.
A realtor in Rhode Island frequently manages a portfolio of listings given to them by lenders they work with.
These properties are available in the local MLS REO property search, with investors being the primary target audience for marketing them.
To find REO properties, establishing a relationship with investor-friendly real estate agents in Rhode Island can significantly enhance your ability to identify and secure lucrative REO properties.
Rhode Island Foreclosure Attorneys
Frequently, news highlights instances where mortgage servicers and real estate lenders in Rhode Island face legal challenges initiated by homeowners.
Foreclosure lawyers in Rhode Island, working for lenders, have shielding banks from legal actions and potential lawsuits as their primary focus.
You want to connect with these professionals so that they forward you leads — homeowners in pre-foreclosure and newly repossessed homes that lenders are selling.
Explore opportunities to contribute to their endeavors, identify ways as a business owner to enhance their operations, and actively seek avenues to simplify their professional lives.
The methods for building connections with short sale lawyers in Rhode Island are diverse and would require a dedicated guide to explore comprehensively.
Next, here is another professional who can help you find repossessed houses for sale.
Rhode Island Short Sale Processors
For real estate investors seeking homeowners whose homes are about to be repossessed by lenders, establishing a robust connection with Rhode Island short sale negotiators or a short sale processing company is absolutely essential.
A short sale processor takes on the intricate task of guiding and facilitating a short sale. They oversee the entire short sale timeline from start to finish, providing invaluable support throughout.
Purchasing a short sale house is a lengthy and intricate process that spans several months, and using a processor shortens it.
This relationship holds a dual benefit, as many short sale processors serve as the initial point of contact between the bank and the homeowner.
Homeowners often turn to a short sale processing company to process a short sale. A solid investor-processor relationship makes it likely for the processor to bring lucrative deals to you.
Here is an overview of what short sale negotiators do for the seller and how they help speed up the process overall. In short, they most often charge buyers and provide service to homeowners for free.
Short sales are considered as time-consuming investment opportunities, so not many investors are willing to deal with them.
Having a partnership with a processor gives you an advantage over those investors who steer away from short sales.
Rhode Island Real Estate Lenders
You might be wondering how to get REO listings from banks directly, without having to pay anyone for referring you a deal. Indeed, you can just reach out to lenders directly.
Initiating contact can only prove beneficial. Consider this: The most unfavorable response they might give is, “No, we don’t have foreclosures to sell you.”
Call a local bank and initiate the conversation by presenting yourself and highlighting your keen interest in finding distressed properties. Tell them you’d buy one or a few for cash.
Banks with foreclosures to sell look for buyers: they will only be glad you’re calling. Their objective is to accelerate the sale, erase it from their financial records, and get back to lending.
Targeting smaller, community-based lenders yields better results than seeking repossessed properties by contacting large banks.
Local banks are often more accessible, allowing for direct communication with decision makers. In many cases, connecting with a credit union manager is just one or two calls away.
Engage with these banks, put in the effort, and you may find yourself in possession of a valuable list of repo homes.
Rhode Island Courthouses
This is a strategy embraced by a select few investors in the need to find foreclosed houses.
While this approach to real estate investment and wholesale real estate lead generation demands more time, the trade-off is a reduced level of competition.
Each county hosts its own rendition of this establishment. It is commonly referred to as the county recording office — a place where public records are stored. This is the key destination to get a foreclosed homes list for free.
Your focus should be on retrieving a list of lis pendens. A lis pendens is initiated when a homeowner falls behind on mortgage payments, prompting the bank to issue a judgment against the title.
This judgment serves as a public notice, alerting others that the homeowner is in arrears, and the loan servicer in Rhode Island holds the primary claim to the property, holding a first-lien position.
So, that explains what a lis pendens is, and this is the method through which you can get a list of foreclosures from the courthouse.
Additionally, you can find tax-delinquent properties in your area on the brink of a sheriff auction sale through this method.
After you find foreclosures in your area for free and make a list of them, you might encounter outdated contact information for the property owners.
For such cases, you need real estate skip tracing services. There are many automatic skip tracing services for real estate investors.
These tools facilitate the process of finding motivated seller leads swiftly, including their phone numbers, emails, and even social media profiles.
Bank Websites
Directly visiting a bank’s website serves as a fantastic online method to find out about foreclosures.
Not every bank will provide a comprehensive, easily navigable website that allows you to access extensive foreclosure lists or conduct a free search for bank-owned repossessed homes for sale.
Typically, it’s advisable to focus on larger mortgage servicers such as Bank of America and Wells Fargo.
Many of these major servicers maintain well-organized websites where you can navigate to the designated tab containing a list of foreclosures and effortlessly find bank-owned properties for free.
A list of bank foreclosures in Rhode Island specifically may not be as long as other tools provide, but it’s worth checking on it from time to time if you don’t have a subscription to better tools.
Now, let’s delve into my final tip on how you can find foreclosed homes.
HUD Foreclosures
Here’s an alternative method for finding foreclosed homes for sale for free. This is particularly useful if you’re looking to minimize marketing expenses as you start buying houses to flip.
Many foreclosures are linked to government-backed mortgages provided by HUD.
The fantastic news is that you can conveniently visit HUD’s website and conduct a search for the specific types of properties you’re interested in at hudhomestore.gov.
Upon entering the website, navigate to the middle of the opening page. That is where you’ll find the option to search HUD foreclosures for the exact type of property you desire.
This is an excellent way to find motivated seller leads for free.
The foreclosed home search on HUD’s website allows you to filter properties by county, zip code, city, state, and more.
They also provide a distinct section where you can find HUD foreclosed homes based on the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, hence allowing for a more precise search.
Get Expert Training to Find Upcoming Foreclosures Like a Pro
I’m Bob Vieira, the founder and proprietor of Universal Short Sales, the nation’s rapidly advancing short sale processing company.
I’ve distilled all my insights and expertise on short sales and pre-foreclosures into a comprehensive resource, exclusively available in my latest offering, the Pre-Foreclosure Fast Lane course.
This course is meticulously structured into three key phases:
- Short Sale and Pre-foreclosure Fundamentals
- Lead Generation
- How to Monetize Pre-Foreclosures and Short Sales
As a bonus, I’m sharing my proprietary 12-step system, offering a detailed walkthrough of how we execute short sales in our company.
Best of all, this course is entirely free — it’s my way of offering a gift to fellow investors. Enjoy the valuable insights!
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About the author
Bob Vieira is the Founder and Managing Partner of Universal Short Sales, LLC. While serving clients as a licensed Realtor, he realized there was a need for a knowledgeable company, specializing in the short sale sector. Bob is an industry expert with a passion for guiding homeowners through the short sale process.