13 Best Ways How to Find Foreclosures to Get a List of Bank-Owned Properties in Tennessee (Free & Paid Methods)

This is an all-encompassing roadmap to unlocking hidden opportunities in foreclosure and pre-foreclosure real estate investing.

It will help you to navigate through distinctive strategies based on using the internet, networking, and more.

I’m Bob Vieira, from Universal Short Sales, the fastest-growing short sale processing firm nationwide. In this guide, I will share with you my personal expertise.

Let’s start with the online ways to search for foreclosure deals.

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 Tennessee “we buy houses” companies 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 motivated seller leads through our advanced Lead Marketplace.

Other Platforms

There exist numerous other options of lead generation software for real estate investors and real estate investment software tools in the market.

They provide access to distressed property leads, spanning pre-foreclosures and repossessed homes.

Some of those apps for wholesale real estate have real estate investor CRM systems built-in, and others integrate with CRM tools popular among investors and wholesalers.

Explore a variety of tools designed to uncover foreclosed properties, pre-foreclosures, and diverse types of motivated sellers, such as PropStream, PropertyRadar, MyHouseDeals, REIPro, Propelio, InvestorLift, PiN, and Privy.

The following tools won’t provide you with REO real estate deals, but they are still good for finding pre-foreclosures: iSpeedToLead, FreedomSoft, NeedtoSellMyHouseFast, BatchLeads, 8020REI, and Motivated Leads.

Foreclosure.com is recognized as one of the most widely known REO search engines that can be used to find foreclosed properties and pre-foreclosed homes. It enjoys significant popularity and is likely a familiar name to you as well.

Like most other tools, it provides multiple subscription plans. At around 40 dollars per month, which is the most popular plan, you can get all the functionality you need to find foreclosures on a regular basis.

What sets Foreclosure.com apart are two notable features. Firstly, its user-friendliness stands out – a seamless experience for members who simply sign up and start finding foreclosures online.

This aspect is particularly appealing for individuals who, like myself, may not be the most tech-savvy.

Secondly, the site offers an easy-to-use map feature that I find particularly beneficial. It allows users to search foreclosures by address with ease.

By using a comprehensive list of every state in the United States, users can click on their desired state and obtain all the necessary data on available foreclosures.

Where else to find cheap foreclosed homes for sale? Keep reading!

SEARCH FORECLOSURES IN TENNESSEE

The leading real estate auction platform nationwide is Auction.com. Its unparalleled size alone establishes it among the best places to find foreclosures.

However, Auction.com offers much more than just size. While it’s one of the best websites to find foreclosures and short sale deals, the platform encompasses a variety of other assets, including movable property.

You don’t have to pay a monthly fee. While bidding on a property, if you win an auction, a buyer’s premium is paid to Auction.com — the mechanism by which they generate revenue.

A word of caution when engaging in property auctions: not all auctions provide the opportunity to thoroughly assess properties in alignment with your real estate investment due diligence checklist.

So if you are a newbie without much cash and can’t take risks, keep this website in mind for the future — when you have grown your business.

Let’s delve into one of the most widely recognized platforms regarding how to look up foreclosures, and that’s none other than Zillow.

Zillow, a globally acknowledged brand, has become synonymous with real estate. Many investors leverage its capabilities when finding houses to wholesale or flip, so Zillow’s utility extends beyond just finding properties for personal use.

What sets Zillow apart, and what I particularly appreciate, is its user-friendly interface.

So, how to find foreclosures in Tennessee on Zillow? You simply log in, and when browsing Tennessee property to buy, input the city or county of interest. Then, apply filters as needed.

You can effortlessly select “foreclosures” or “pre-foreclosures” from the dropdown menu, or even explore properties available through auctions. That’s how getting a foreclosed home on Zillow works.

An MLS stands out as a remarkable avenue for investors to get REO listings, providing an excellent resource for those holding a real estate license.

If you lack one, enlisting the services of a real estate agent is an alternative, albeit at a fee.

Each Tennessee MLS operates independently, having distinct interfaces and other differences.

But the common thread across all MLS platforms is the ability to refine your search and discover local foreclosure and pre-foreclosure listings.

Upon logging into the MLS, navigate to the “Property Search” tab, and you should see a dropdown menu. To find foreclosures on MLS, select options like foreclosures, pre-foreclosures, or short sales.

If your focus is on finding single family houses for sale in Tennessee with four bedrooms or more, be sure to narrow down your search accordingly.

Set other criteria to narrow it down to the kind of properties you are really looking for.

Collaborating with a real estate wholesaler in Tennessee presents a fantastic avenue investors can use to look for foreclosed homes.

These are specialists adept at finding homes sold at discounted rates. Their business model is tailored for property investors in Tennessee.

Many investors are glad to find real estate wholesale deals because not only do wholesalers present investors with lucrative opportunities but they also take care of negotiations with sellers.

Here is how wholesalers work. They find a motivated seller, make an offer, and sign a real estate purchase contract with them.

Then they find an investor willing to purchase the house at a higher price than the one in the contract (but still below market value).

At closing, the investor gets the contract assigned to them so it’s the investor and not the wholesaler who purchases the house, at the price indicated in the contract.

At the same time, the investor pays the wholesaler an assignment fee — the difference between the price the investor agreed to pay for the whole deal and the one in the contract.

Expand your knowledge of this approach by delving into the beginner’s guide on becoming a real estate wholesaler and immersing yourself in the intricacies of wholesaling houses in Tennessee.

Wholesalers, being well-versed in the intricacies of the market, can get you a list of foreclosures in your area to choose from.

Motivated seller lead generation is the foundation of their business. So wholesalers often have multiple properties under contract at any given moment, doing their best to efficiently serve returning clients in need of quickly finding properties to flip.

In your house flipping career, real estate wholesalers should undoubtedly be among the first vendors on your networking list.

Real estate wholesalers are likely to be in contact with property owners who are looking to sell quickly.

When sellers are looking for quick cash sales, it is often because they are in a distressed situation, including facing foreclosure.

— Joe Hafner, Hafner Real Estate, Broker/Owner

The pathway for you to get a foreclosed homes list can be achieved by connecting with REO agents.

Real Estate-Owned (REO) marks the phase wherein a bank concludes the foreclosure process, regaining possession of the property from the homeowner.

Oftentimes, banks will be glad to sell the property cheaper than its market worth. They are not in the real estate business but rather in the note business. Owning a property is a burden to them.

Consequently, once a property undergoes foreclosure, the bank assigns its sale to a listing agent, commonly referred to as an REO agent.

Tennessee real estate agents are often busy marketing multiple REO listings assigned by banks. Those homes you see in REO property search on Zillow and the likes are listed by REO agents.

Building a relationship with an investment realtor in Tennessee is an excellent move, helping you find REO properties as soon as your partner realtor gets them.

A Tennessee foreclosure attorney is a professional serving banks or homeowners in legal cases that involve foreclosures and short sales.

As they have lenders in Tennessee on their networking list and among their clients, the lawyers can be aware of new foreclosure opportunities that they can send you as leads.

But what’s in it for them? First of all, you may be helpful if their clients’ dispute can be resolved by you quickly purchasing the property helping both sides avoid a foreclosure.

Second, you can offer a referral fee to a foreclosure lawyer and see what they answer.

Maybe you have more ideas about how you could provide benefits to foreclosure and short sale lawyers in Tennessee and find repossessed houses for sale in return.

For real estate investors on the lookout for distressed properties, particularly those in pre-foreclosure, establishing a robust connection with Tennessee short sale processors is absolutely essential.

The role of a short sale processor is comprehensive. They guide all parties through the entire short selling process from inception to completion.

Short sale purchase is often an intricate and time-consuming endeavor, often spanning several months, if processed unprofessionally. Hence, having a reliable go-to short sale processor significantly benefits investors.

But the advantage goes beyond having the process overseen for you. If you partner with a short sale processor, they may bring you deals.

Short sale processors are hired by motivated sellers, so they serve them (generally at no cost). If a seller doesn’t have a buyer yet, the processor will refer them to you.

You will pay the processor a reasonable fee and get a lucrative investment property that other investors wouldn’t even consider because of being scared of the short sale process.

You can read more about short sale processors in my article on what short sale negotiators do for the seller.

With all those fancy web tools and networking strategies, it’s easy to forget that you can just contact lenders directly.

With this approach, you don’t risk anything except for your time. You may have to spend a few hours researching lenders and their contact details than when just buying leads.

But those lenders will stay among your contacts, which is also beneficial for your business.

When calling them, just say you are an investor wondering where to find distressed properties for cash and fast and that you’d like to look at their repo homes.

Many of them will be excited to hear that since, as mentioned above, foreclosed homes are a burden for lenders.

Notably, smaller banks prove to be the optimal targets for sourcing repossessed properties.

When reaching out to them, it’s easier to get to the right person to contact, without too much waiting and bureaucracy.

This direct outreach strategy, when executed diligently, can be a fruitful avenue for investors pondering how to get REO listings from banks without the involvement of middlemen.

You can find foreclosed houses through the local county courthouse. It’s not a very popular yet potentially lucrative strategy offering investors an opportunity to secure deals with minimal competition.

To find leads for wholesale real estate, one must either visit the courthouse personally or utilize its website if it allows searching for foreclosure notices online.

Officially, a courthouse may be named something else than a ‘courthouse’ in your county. But in essence, it’s where your county’s government keeps public records — that’s where you can get a foreclosed homes list for free.

While sifting through records, compile a list of lis pendens, which is filed when homeowners cause mortgage payment delinquencies.

After it’s issued, note servicing companies in Tennessee can initiate a foreclosure process.

Similarly, if you want to find properties with unpaid taxes nearing a sheriff auction sale, the courthouse emerges as the paramount source of information.

Once you get a list of foreclosures from the courthouse, the need to update contact information for some owners through real estate skip tracing may be essential.

Leveraging some of the best real estate investor skip tracing software can enable you to swiftly find motivated house sellers‘ contact details. These include their telephone numbers, emails, and social media profiles.

Coming up is one more way to find foreclosures in your area for free.

The best way to find foreclosures in Tennessee is to go to your county’s Register of Deeds office and ask the staff which publications have the most foreclosure notices published in them.

Then, subscribe to those publications to stay current on the latest legal notices.

You can also ask the Register of Deeds staff to show you how to check Notices of Trustee Sales and Substitute Trustee Sales in the Public Records.

Every foreclosure action must be recorded in the county’s public records.

— Joe Hafner, Hafner Real Estate, Broker/Owner

To find out about foreclosures from banks, you may not even need to call them. Many banks have a search functionality on their website to help you find their bank-owned repossessed homes for sale.

Not every bank has an extensive, easily navigable website offering an abundance of foreclosures with a free search option.

But on sites of larger banks, such as Wells Fargo or Bank of America, you can easily find bank-owned properties for free.

Their search is similar to the ones on sites like Zillow. When browsing bank foreclosures in Tennessee or another state, you can set various criteria to refine your search.

And now, here is my final tip on how to search for foreclosures, and this method is also free and easy.

For those starting a house flipping business and aiming to minimize marketing expenses, here is one more way of finding foreclosed homes for sale for free — through a government website — hudhomestore.gov.

HUD is a governmental organization backing up mortgages to provide home-buying assistance to citizens. Many of those affordable mortgages end up in foreclosure.

You can search HUD foreclosures and get free motivated seller leads just by visiting the site’s homepage and scrolling a bit down.

The user-friendly interface allows you to conduct a foreclosed home search based on various criteria, including county, city, state, zip code, and more.

Additionally, you can find HUD-foreclosed homes based on the number of bedrooms and bathrooms.

Which of the following resources do you use to find foreclosed and pre-foreclosed properties in Tennessee?

Which of the following real estate professionals can be the best source of foreclosure deals for an investor in Tennessee?

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My name is Bob Vieira. I am the founder and proprietor of Universal Short Sales — recognized as the nation’s most rapidly growing short sale processing company.

By leveraging my extensive knowledge and insights into short sales and pre-foreclosures, I’ve meticulously curated all valuable information exclusively for you, and made it available in my newly launched Pre-Foreclosure Fast Lane course.

This comprehensive course is thoughtfully structured into three key phases:

1. Short Sale and Pre-Foreclosure Fundamentals
2. Lead Generation
3. How to Monetize Pre-Foreclosures and Short Sales

As an added bonus, I generously share my proprietary 12-step system providing a detailed walkthrough of how we successfully execute short sales within our company.

This invaluable resource comes to you at absolutely no cost — it’s my way of extending a meaningful gift to you. Enjoy the learning experience!

When people talk about “foreclosures”, there is often a misunderstanding about what this means.

Many people refer to bank-owned properties, which the bank has acquired through the foreclosure process, as “foreclosures.”

A true foreclosure is when the homeowner falls behind on his or her payments and the bank uses the legal process outlined in the mortgage or deed of trust documents to force a sale of the home through an auction or Sheriff’s Sale.

The biggest pitfall for the first type of “foreclosure”, buying a bank-owned property, is not thoroughly checking out the property and comparable sales before purchasing.

Many bank-owned properties are listed for sale near retail prices even when they are not in retail condition. It’s important to know the market so you don’t get burned.

In a true foreclosure, there are many pitfalls that could hurt you. The biggest is probably not properly researching the title before buying the home at the auction.

Foreclosure auctions and Sheriff’s Sales make no guarantees about the property being sold, including what position the loan triggering the auction is on title.

If you’re not careful, you could accidentally buy a second lien that is still subject to paying off the first lien on the property after the auction.

— Joe Hafner, Hafner Real Estate, Broker/Owner

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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.