Looking to enter into the foreclosure business and wondered a couple things. First, assuming you have cash for the property, is it better to put it all in up front, or just the minimum certified amount during the auction. 2nd, I’ve heard about going to the county to obtain current listings for a small fee. Can the average person do enough of their own homework on a property to know going in exactly what the costs will be or do you need to hire someone to find certain info. Thanks for the input.
Foreclosures will be the business in the future for Florida. You see how well real estate is doing right now. Pay rates are stagnent and people are being forced to assume high mortgages, because the values are rising too quickly. No one can explain what is going on but, it is ridiculous. I blame the townhouse and condo developments…lol 
My house value has jumped 50k in the past four months. (Jacksonville, Florida)
Good Afternoon Phil,
I started out doing exactly what your looking at doing, and it was profitable for me. But now I have moved up stream and am buying foreclosures pre-auction from the lenders. This was about a 3 year process, they don’t open up easily. I have found auctions tend to raise the sell price, versus purchasing the properties short-sale or preforeclosure from the lender. It also takes less cash upfron to purchase them this way. I am involved in properties in several states, and Florida is a great investor market, you should do well.
Go Get’em!
Ray - Indiana
what ecxactly do you mean by little cash up front, ray?
Hi El,
When completing lease option purchases, I generally put only $1.00 upfront as financial consideration. In some cases, I may need to put a few hundred into the property to clean it up and increase the profitability of the deal.
Enjoy your day,
Ray Rochefort
Managing Member
Purpose Investments LLC
Where I come from, $1.00 and a few hundred dollars qualifies as “little cash”… 
Jeez, I put at least 1,000% more on an option. Please save me 900%; I’d like to learn some of your tricks, assuming I could still sleep with myself at night. Way to go!
Dave
Here is fort lauderdale, one of mentors started laughing when i asked him about using 10 dollars deposits as advocated by dwan twyford. He was telling me here it would be around $500 clams. lol
steve
Hey All,
The reason I use $1.00 for financial consideration is my attorney told me money needs to exchange hands for a contract to be validated. I have paid more for a lease option, but not often. In my experiance, the more money due the seller at the end of the deal, the more likely they are to be cooperative; i.e. signing the final paperwork, etc.
Just my humble opinion.
Enjoy your day,
Ray
Ray,
I am from Chicago and have found exactly what you said about the auctions, the prices are pushed upwards for no good reason, due to this reason, I am looking into pre-foreclosures that I can get from individual owners or lenders, but have not been successful so far. I get a list every month from someone that contains pre-foreclosures and I send letters out and out of 100 letters, I get on average one response and that usually does work out. Can you tell me your secrets?
You bet. I have made contacts over the years with lenders and a hand full of large investors. These investors generally have 400 - 600 properties in inventory at any one time. Because they buy in large groups, they are usually motivated to sell off some of the inventory quickly to recoup some of their original investment. I have found several good money makers with these companies. From the lenders I know, I obtain lists of properties before they are offered to REO agents, in most cases the people are still in the house for a week or two after I purchase it because the evicition process has not been completed. If you want to let me know what area you invest in and what type of homes, including size, price range, etc. I will send you lists of any properties I know of in those area’s. The best way to reach me is purposeinvest@aol.com
Enjoy your day,
Ray Rochefort
Managing Member
Purpose Investments LLC