De Meire owns CountyRecordsResearch.com in Huntington Beach, Calif. The firm — operating in California, Arizona and Nevada — processes foreclosures for lenders, tracks distressed real estate and teaches investors how to buy the properties. He also provides a bidding service at auctions for investors who can’t attend.
When he takes would-be flippers on field trips to the auctions, De Meire, in his wide-brimmed hat, speaks in a slow, instructive style as he explains the auction process. He also ticks other ways investors can find opportunities, all before a home is relisted on the market.
You can approach a homeowner long before the foreclosure auction, he tells the students, once the property goes into default, which is the first step in the repossession process.
Or you could buy a delinquent note from the bank at a discount and take over the home loan, he suggests, essentially becoming the lender, and eventually foreclosing on and reselling the property at a profit.
Another idea: Try to buy the home from the lender immediately after the auction in what’s technically called the trustee sale, after no one has bid on it and the home has just reverted to the bank.
