JolieSimons.com

Believe it or not, I am somewhat of an insider in the home foreclosure market. No, I’m not a real estate agent or real estate broker. I’m not a mortgage lender. I’m simply a writer who has written a few books and articles on the subject of home foreclosures. I keep track of the data. I read many of the articles. If you’re looking for a get-rich-quick scheme, stay far away from foreclosures.

In my hometown of St. Louis, I was watching TV late one night, only to find an ad for a conference being held at some hotel in the city. The gist of the gathering was for you to spend a couple hundred of your hard-earned dollars in exchange for a “surefire” way to get rich off of the real estate market. Certainly the coming recession won’t bother you when you’re making tens of thousands of dollars a month, right?

Unfortunately, these foreclosure schemes are set up on false pretenses. Below, I’ve listed some of these scams for you. Avoid at all costs:

• Often these programs will tell you to purchase property in foreclosure or preforeclosure, that point at which the owner has defaulted on a mortgage but ownership still resides with the homeowner. The idea is to take these peoples’ homes for far less than they’re worth and quickly flip them. Generally this means finding a way to screw over someone who’s in dire financial and personal straights. Real nice, huh?
• Next, you’re supposed to find a way to quickly flip the property by selling it for much less than market value, meaning a buyer is sure to take it. Unfortunately, these real estate gurus forget to mention that, in today’s tanking housing market, there just aren’t any buyers. That’s why home prices are going down in the first place. This is simple supply and demand that these predatory types are trying to avoid telling you.
• If a real estate guru tells you to “invest in short sales” or “make money in buying notes,” these are code words for sticking it to people in times of crisis. This usually means taking their homes for far less than they’re worth, sticking the homeowners with the damage to their credit and any remaining loan debt. Sometimes this can mean taking control of a person’s home out from under them! Shady, indeed.
• Never let anyone tell you that, simply because prices are down, now is the good time to get into the business of flipping houses. If you can’t afford to buy houses, you can’t afford it. It’s as simple as that. Buying properties you can’t afford with the hopes that you can move them quickly will cause much more heartache for you. Don’t buy ANY property you can’t afford.