When you are looking for lists of foreclosure and/or pre-foreclosure homes, there are several ways to go about it. Many buyers look for these lists for different reasons. Some want to buy properties, some want to offer services to the foreclosure victim, and others just want to scam and steal from these people.

Depending on which of these you are, you would need to look in a different place. If you are a foreclosure scammer, hopefully you end up in prison before you get the chance to take anyone's home or money. If you offer legitimate services, or want to buy a foreclosure home, continue reading.

First we'll begin with people who want to invest in foreclosure properties.

The quickest and easiest method to find a foreclosure home is through a local Realtor. Many Realtors specialize in foreclosure properties and can assist you find a much better deal than you could find on your own. The small price you will pay can easily be justified by having their experience and knowledge at your fingertips.

If you do not want to use a Realtor, you should still take advantage of the information they have available. Many Realtor websites offer full access to their MLS system and searching the terms "foreclosure" and "short sale" will give you a huge list of results.

Another choice, when you do not want to pay a Realtor, is to use your local county courthouse. Since foreclosures are a matter of public record, you will have complete access to every loan that has gone into foreclosure. With a little research, you can get the estimated value of the home, the current owner's name, and you can find out what they paid for the home.

Most online companies that offer "foreclosure data" simply access these same court records.

If you are willing to pay for these records, there are a lot of website brokers that access court info and credit data for a reasonable fee. By paying for this data, you can usually narrow your list down to the exact type of property you are looking for. In just a few minutes, you could have 100's of properties that fit your exact criteria.

For companies or individuals who want this data for marketing purposes, they will generally need to get "pre-foreclosure" data. This is when someone has missed payments, but has not yet lost their house to foreclosure.

Pre-foreclosure data can also be obtained from the courts, but for marketing purposes, it's much better to get this information from credit reports. By doing a simple search for people who have missed payments and are not able to refinance, you can find as many pre-foreclosure records as you need. Otherwise, you will need to search the court records for lis pendens filings.

Lis Pendens lists are listed at every courthouse and this is the data that is on every marketing list you see for sale on the web. If you are facing foreclosure, this is why you are getting so many phone calls and junk mail communications about foreclosure. These companies are selling your name and info 100's of times a day!

In my opinion, this data should be private and people in foreclosure should be left alone. But since our courts are public, foreclosure victims don't have a choice. There are many ways to keep this information private, but generally, the steps to keep it private need to be taken in advance. Once your info is public, there is no way to hide it.

Good luck finding your lists, but please don't use this information to send spam or abuse helpless foreclosure victims!