Foreclosure properties offer great opportunities to those looking
for reasonably priced properties in which to live or invest. Because
many foreclosure properties are sold so that the financial institution
which holds title to them can recoup the money they loaned to the
property’s defaulting buyer, they are often sold for less than their
actual value.

Every state has a legally defined foreclosure
procedure. Ohio foreclosures have increased so much in the past year
that its foreclosure rate is among the top three states in the US, so
there are plenty of Ohio foreclosures for sale. Ohio foreclosures are
“judicial foreclosures; the Ohio foreclosures process, from start to
finish, is overseen by the Courts.

Because all Ohio foreclosures
have to wend their ways through the legal system, it may take more than
six months from the time the lender makes the initial foreclosure
filings to the completed sale of the Ohio foreclosure property. This
makes the Ohio foreclosure process one of the lengthiest in the US.

Slow But Not Cheap

While
they are waiting fore their foreclosure filings to be approved by the
Court, the lenders on Ohio foreclosures are still paying insurance,
property taxes, and maintenance costs for those homes, without having an
income from them.

Because of this, the lenders may not be anxious
to put a home in foreclosure, so if you can approach a defaulting
homeowner during the pre-foreclosure period and buy the home directly
from its owner, you will not have to wait, and the bank will save a
great deal of money. They may even offer you friendly financing terms
just to keep from having to deal with the Ohio foreclosures process.

You
may also come out ahead by buying the home in pre-foreclosure because,
under Ohio foreclosure law, there is a minimum price foe which a
foreclosure must sell. If an Ohio foreclosure property is sold at
auction, the opening bid must be at least two-thirds of its appraised
value. So decide, knowing about what you’ll minimally have to pay for
the house, if you want to wait six months to get it.

Another Ohio Foreclosures Rule

The Ohio foreclosures law allows borrowers–the homeowners–a “right of redemption.” If at any time during the Ohio home foreclosures

foreclosures process, all the way up to the day the Court certifies a
sale, the home’s inhabitant can still pay off the balance of the loan
and the court costs, cure the default, and end the foreclosure.

If
you’ve been waiting for four or five months for the property to come to
auction, and have set aside the necessary funds to purchase it, this
little clause in the Ohio foreclosures law can wipe all your hard work out in a single day.

From
a buyer’s standpoint the best way to handle Ohio foreclosures is before
they become Ohio foreclosures–while the homeowner is in trouble with
his or her monthly payments and looking for away to get out of the
mortgage without having a credit history blemished with a foreclosure.

If
that isn’t possible, be ready for a long wait and the disappointment
that may come if the homeowner finds a way to cover his or her debt, and
if you’re lucky, you may be the new owner of a terrific Ohio home at a
bargain price!