Let's review a few critical tips for purchasing distressed properties in Florida. First of all, before you ever enter into negotiations with a seller, it's important to pre-qualify your credit. Sellers and the banks alike will be far more interested in hearing your offer if you come prepared to do business. Thus, before you get into the distressed properties buying game, make sure you have enough capital to play with.
Secondly, you want to make reasonable offers. Although distressed property owners are hemmed in by the law, they don't want to give away their homes. If you make a ridiculously low offer, you insult the wherewithal of the seller and potentially sink the deal. Instead, study up on property trends in the area and present yourself as a way out, not as a conquistador.
Third, pick a particular window of opportunity. Some distressed property buyers focus on the pre-foreclosure period, when owners want to sell to avoid bad credit marks. Others work the auction angle and hope to capitalize on last minute negotiations to get properties at discounts of 50 percent or more. This second angle can be highly risky, however, since you can't lean on mortgage financing to protect you.
However, you want to hone your distressed property search, so you should sign up for ForeclosuresDaily.com's advanced database. Our website gathers data from Florida courthouses and property assessment offices in a convenient online form, which you can access any time of the day or night. All told, ForeclosuresDaily.com contains up to the minute info on foreclosures in 26 Florida Counties. We also link to many convenient foreclosure resources.