Hey Pat, I figured I'd give you an outsiders prospective to your question. A little background on our situation, I work the Metro-Detroit, Michigan area that has been riddled with foreclosures for almost 5-6 years now. Prices have fallen so much in the city, that the average sale price for a home is $8,000.

Foreclosures, in our area, smaller banks will deal directly with you if you want to purchase, and they will give you a list of properties. Medium banks will give you a list and make you purchase 5 or more properties in a package. Large banks usually won't respond unless you are willing to purchase 5 million or more in properties at once, usually not located in the same state, they will tell you to wait until the house is listed with a realtor.

In our area, the foreclosure process is as follows. Miss 2 payments, bank refuses payments (depending on the bank) and files paperwork for foreclosure, then we have a sheriff's sale where deed is transferred and the owner has 6 months to redeem the property (refianance, or payoff the debt, 99% of the time there is no chance this will get redeemed)

Getting properties during this process, we have a paper called the "Legal News" that gives public notce to properties that are going to foreclosure. I believe they must publish this 2-3 months prior to foreclosure. You can bid at the court house steps, however, this may be risky, because you may not be able to view the property.

Overall, I think you are asking about realty trac, and other similar companies. Our MLS system transmits with county records, which I believe is the same thing these companies are doing. So every time data report's a sheriff's sale, they flag it as a foreclosure, but I've found this data can be off as much as current to 1 yr old.

I can go on and on about all of this stuff, but if you really want some answers that could possibly help you, give me a call, 734-891-7085

Aloha Pat.

I'm sure you've been surfing the internet and a lot of sites are charging a fee to view these foreclosure and REO listings. Its not worth paying the fee, instead find yourself a good real estate agent to work with you. The agent will have access to these listing providing they are licensed with a reputable brokerage, and both the agent and broker are members of the Honolulu Board of Realtors. My website at http://carolinemiller.point2agent.com offers information on these foreclosures and short sales. You are also welcome to e-mail me at cmmra@carolinemiller.net. Warm Regards, Caroline

Aloha:
My name is Mike Gallagher and Broker in Charge at RE/MAX Honolulu.
There are over 500 Short Sales and Foreclosures on Oahu at any given time. Although the number has not grown significantly over the past 6 months you will most of them in two regions:

Ewa
Metro

If you need current stats or have a particular area of interest to invest this category then visit my website at:
http://www.hawaiirealestatestatistics.com

or email me your questions directly at mikeg@hawaii.rr.com

Mike Gallagher
Broker in Charge RE/MAX Honolulu
Ethics Complaints Review Committee Member, Honolulu Board of Realtors

My company is very pro active on foreclosures (REO's) and short sales and we have offices on ALL the main islands. The easiest method of locating current properties like this is with an agent who can set up the updates to be generated to you for this type of property. If you have not yet been successful in locating an experienced agent please email me and I would be happy to refer you to an agent located on Oahu either near where you are looking or where you live. Also check my blogs for some helpful information on purchasing foreclosures and short sales. Best of luck...it's a great buyer's market.

You won't by the way be charged a fee. Updates on active listings and your purchase does not involve you paying a commission generally. FSBO properties sometimes will, if the sellers will not pay the agents commission.

Aloha Pat,
I understand how confusing that can be. If you want to see all the REO and short sale listings on Kauai, including those in escrow, you can download my weekly report at http://www.Kauai-Foreclosures.com.

An agent who specializes in your area can set up automatic email alerts for you, too. Please know I'm here to help.
Susie

Susanna Kunkel, RA, CDPE
Hawaii Life Real Estate Services, LLC

We've got them listed for free:
All REO in the MLS on Oahu: http://www.prudentiallocations.com/hawaii-foreclosures.aspx
All short sales listed in the Oahu MLS: http://www.prudentiallocations.com/hawaii-short-sales.aspx

Or you can use the power search if you want to search in a specific price range, you can save your search if you wish also:

Contact an agent in the area that you are interested in receiving information , and ask them to put you on autonotification for bank owned properties via the local mls you are interested.

I have 4 REOs for sale on my site right now. Let me know if you want to see any of them that may fit your needs. There are also video tours on there for you to check them out inside and out.
On my You Tube ther eis a great short sale that is available and it has 2 small homes right in Honolulu for $580k...
Please feel free to contact me and we can look at your ability to buy a home and the pitfalls and thoughts about buying REOs and other distressed properties.

If you need to know the difference in the distressed properties please check out my distressed property Vlog Series that describes the differences.

Aloha
David Nash
TheOahuAgent.com

They're all correct Pat.

I can set up a search to filter out only the short sales. You get them automatically be email and there is no charge. This would only include the ones that are listed by Realtors participating in MLS. I would guess that it would cover 2/3 or more of what's available.
Unfortunately, some slip through without getting listed for sale and it goes straight to auction. In any case, they are all available through public records as mentioned already.
Let me know if you would liek this set up. Send price range, zip code (or neighborhood or area), # of bedrooms, condition, etc. Or call me and I can set it up in less than 10 minutes.

Frank Diaz, MBA (RA)
808.723.0900

Already,

Your real estate agent will be able to provide you with the current foreclosures and short sales in your area

Call local REO Realtors in the area (google search) and ask them if they have the technology to filter the REOs and Short Sales on a auto update list for you. You would then get a list of homes that come up on the market as soon as they do for free! Good Luck!

If you mean on the internet, I don't know of any source. Pre-foreclosures and foreclosures can be collected by going down to your local country recorder's office, where the foreclosure actions (lis pendens/notice of default, auction) are posted. It's a lot of work to go through these, however. Newspapers also have foreclosure auctions listed, but it can be pretty late in the game by the time they are posted. Besides, the county recorder's office is missing a lot of information you'd have to do yourself. I don't know of any free sources of REO listings. I use foreclosures.com for pre/auctions/REOs - at $50/month, it's worth it.

I'm not sure what you mean by "short sales" - I know what they are, of course, but what would you be looking to do with them?