What's the next step

[Frank Ruopoli]

Hello BP community, This is my second post and hopefully it's in the right area. Completely a newbie question and here it goes... So between reading as much as I can, I browse a few real estate sites. In my neighborhood there are quite a few houses in foreclosure. One is going to auction in a week. Now the house needs quite a bit of work. Looks like it hasn't been updated at all since maybe the 70's for all I know. But for the right price could be a good opportunity for a flip. Now for my question, what would be my next step. The house is listed on zillow and auction.com. How do I obtain more info on the house and find out how to place a bid. Do I stand in front of the house in the day of the auction, do I need to register, can I bid online?? This is all so new to me and because of that I probably wouldn't jump on this deal just because I feel I definitely do not have enough knowledge to pull the trigger on anything yet. I'm just trying to figure out what the next step would be and how properly and accurately analyze this property with the info at hand. Thanks in advance for any info.

[Luc Boiron]

It is much easier on your first deal if you have someone to help guide you.

You can contact a Realtor who has experience, and if no commission is paid if you purchase it, perhaps offer to list it with them. It's hard to know a good Realtor though for this type of thing, because they have a bias towards you buying anything so they get a commission.

Another option is to find a local investor who has done this kind of thing before. If you really think this is a deal, show it to them and see how they evaluate it. You can learn from that. If they do buy it, you can possibly get a share of the profit if you can help them in some way, but even if they just show you how to understand what price to pay and you learn the rehab process, it can really set you up to do more down the road.