Internet

I feel like a secret agent. It is pretty crazy how much info you can get easily and quickly via the internet. OK, not *that* much info really, but still surprising. I was trying to search for foreclosure listings in a town we're keeping our eye on. I found a website that listed an active bankruptcy, but only gave some little bits of info and you have to sign up/pay to get the full listing. I went to another website and sleuthed around and matched the data I had with the missing data to narrow down to about 8 possible addresses (20 mins). I went to a bankruptcy lookup site and narrowed to one address (5 minutes). I checked out the house visually from a bird's eye view and a street view, and looked at the neighbor's houses (10 minutes). I then reverse address looked up the names of who lives there (1 minute). I then called a free automated bankruptcy court phone number and got info on the case (3 minutes). Uh-oh. I just added up those estimates, and I've been sitting here longer than that :}

What did this get me? First of all, the house is separated from a six-lane highway by 1-2 acres of forest, no fences. Not so good for letting little boys explore. Also, from what I understand (which isn't much in these matters), the owners had a bankruptcy filing in 1996 that was resolved in 1997. I'm guessing the house shows up as 'active' bankruptcy status because there's a lien on it. I don't think that means it's even available at all (hence, why it doesn't show up on normal property searches...I was just trying to see if there are additional properties that don't show up on web listings). Furthermore, it stinks to pay a realtor thousands and thousands of dollars when they probably don't do this kind of work for you anyway, and you can basically access the same info they can. Finally, I just wasted a nice chunk of my Friday evening doing nothing profitable, which shows just how far I'll go to potentially get a bargain. But it was kind of fun.