Finding foreclosures is probably the easiest task in making money with them. The hardest part that requires work and investigating on your behalf is finding an owner of a foreclosure. In reality, this home is not actually foreclosed on, it is actually distressed.

Anytime we see boards and abandonment, we assume foreclosure which would mean the bank took back the home. But when the home is free and clear, and owned by the borrower, but abandoned, it is distressed.

This is because the owner may have walked away from the home because they moved out of state and didn’t want the hassles of renting, or they may have died, and the heirs didn’t want to move in or deal with renters.

In any case, the home is not actually a foreclosure.

So there are three simple steps to finding an owner of a foreclosure or distressed property:

1) Going down to the county clerk’s office or registers office – Sometimes you can get lucky and have a real address and not the address of the distressed property. This can be the case if the home was a rental.

2) Check the tax records – Even though owners abandon their properties, they sometimes keep up with the taxes because they do not want to owe the government. In this case, the records will show a recent address.

3) Go online – This has three other options in itself:

a) Google the address and see what comes up. Sometimes you can get information on the owner in that way.

b) Check public records online instead of physically going to the office. Most government offices are now online and you can input the address information in the correct fields and get the owners information.

c) You can use online sites like Peoplefinders.com with the name and address or Reversephonedetective.com if it the county books supplied a phone number. I would only advise this if the above methods did not work. This is comes in handy because public records whether online or in person usually have outdated information. Although you have to pay for these types of services, at least they are current.

Or you can just try your luck in buying short sales.