From Short Sale to REO or What To Do After You've Been Rejected

Greeting fans!

As you know, our Oak Forest deal did not go through as a short sale, but are hopeful that the property did not sell at auction, which took place this past Tuesday, so we can make an offer on it as an REO. This leads to my project of the day: how do you find out if a property sold at auction if you didn't attend the auction?

I'm learning as I go on this front, well, actually I'm learning as I go on all fronts, but I have no prior training to tackle this question;-)

I started by googling the question: it was a long shot but seemed like the path of least resistance: alas, my faithful friend failed me.

Next stop was the bank's customer service department, who was quite helpful in directing me to their Consumer REO Department which offered an automated list of contacts depending on the city/state in which the REO's are located. The Chicago numbers belonged to realty companies, one of which I called. Unfortunately the guy with whom I spoke, Mike was helpful but useless. Apparently the bank, at least Harris, directs their REO's to a realtor, but they can't get any information from the sheriff's office until they get the contract from the bank, a process that takes about 30 days. Mike suggested calling back in about a month, which is a lot longer than I was planning to wait, about 29 days longer actually.

The sheriff's office seemed like the next step and, since the foreclosure link on their website was down, I called. I was quickly, if inefficiently, directed to a woman who was unable to give me any information unless I had a sheriff's number (what the heck is that?). She suggested speaking with the bank's attorney who would be authorized to give the information.

I've left a message with the vampires, who were recalcitrant in returning my earlier calls regarding the short sale offer, so we'll see how it goes with this query.

In the meantime I hope this will short cut your research time in the future.

If you'd like to tackle questions like these on your own checkout http://www.newrichbdg.com/