In our county, the foreclosure amount (opening bid) for any property going up for auction is generally available after 5PM on the day before the auction. So if the property is going up for auction on August 8th, the opening bid will be available on August 7th, after 5PM.

The problem is that in many cases there are a lot of properties going up for auction that have a high starting bid amount (generally low or negative equity for my target market) and I have no interest in bidding on those properties but since I don't know the starting bid, I can't eliminate them from my research until the night before the auction. Had I known the starting bid ahead of time, I would have eliminated them from my 'to research' list a long time ago. Not to mention auctions that are cancelled or where the dates are changed but I don't think I can do a whole lot about those types of issues. County offers a limited amount of documents for online viewing but the problem with the electronic research is that generally the information is incomplete and sometimes clearly wrong.

So let's say all the stars are aligned and a property that I've researched ahead of time has a starting bid amount that's in my price range but then I want to have a look at the actual case before bidding so I run over to the Recorder's office to review (opens at 8:30AM) the full documentation (since I already know that the electronic search is incomplete) and then run over to the Sheriff's office for the auction which happens to start at 9AM. So I basically have 15 minutes to scan the documentation.

So now the scary part - since the electronic search is incomplete and I barely had 15 mins to look at the actual documentation, I'm bidding on properties with limited information. Understand that perfect access to information would be nice but not sure if that's a possibility.

Yes, I could go to the recorder's office, bite the bullet and do the research on all the properties ahead of time but have a full-time 9-5 job so can't do that either...

There has to be a better way to do this and am looking for ideas/suggestions on what others do to (a) eliminate properties with low equity from their research list and (b) have enough time to review the actual court documents before bidding on the auction while keeping a 9-5 job.

TIA

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