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At some point, you may have made the decision to begin dabbling in foreclosure investing, but you haven't yet started since you don't yet have foreclosure homes. Two key groups of listings include government foreclosures and bank owned real estate, and it is useful to think in terms of these two groups as there are numerous ways to identify foreclosure homes.

Within the category of government foreclosures you can consider quite a many different sources. These include va foreclosures from the Department of Veterans Affairs, hud foreclosures from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Office of Property Disposal at the General Services Administration, the Department of Treasury, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Marshals Service, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and also Fannie Mae.

Regarding bank foreclosures, often, banks will have REO lists on their Internet page, and you can even find these banks on the Internet as well. Asset management companies also often list bank foreclosures. They work to assist lenders to get rid of assets, and so they often have REO properties for banks that are their customers on their Internet page.

It is also very important to look at pre-foreclosure homes as a possible source for your investments. To be able to capitalize on this option you really need to have a decent understanding of the foreclosure process. But at various stages of the process notices are recorded with the County Clerk and these public records may be searched by anyone which gives you the possibility of locating properties that are heading towards foreclosure. You can then approach the owners about acquiring the property prior to foreclosure and help them out of a sticky situation.

As is required, the Notice of Sale of a foreclosed property must me published in the newspaper. You will find notices for trustee sales in the Public Notices section of the local newspaper. It is important to be thorough with your research when you buy at trustee sales, therefore it may be better to be aware of properties before they reach the public notice stage of the foreclosure process. Exercise caution as properties are sold "as is-where is".

It could be well worth your while familiarizing yourself with the county website for your target market to see what resources they offer online for researching foreclosures in that market. This could be useful whether you are interested in acquiring properties via pre-foreclosure or at foreclosure auctions on the county courthouse steps.

As you may notice there various sources of foreclosure homes and I recommend that you explore several sources as opposed to only using one foreclosure database. If you expand to include the listings of a few banks, asset managers and government agencies as well as the county clerk you will have a more varied range of listings to chose from. And this will give you an edge over investors competing with you for properties.