Free Websites for Foreclosed Homes: Where to Find Free Foreclosure Listings

With the record number of foreclosures around the country right now, it is a good time to get started investing in real estate. There are a lot of websites out there offering foreclosure listings but most of them charge a fee for the service.  Those fees can be high and they really add up if you subscribe for many months.  I figured there had to be some free websites for foreclosed homes out there, so I set out to find them for you.

I checked out several foreclosure sites for this article, but only found two that were truly free. The rest all had a 7-day free trial period, after which time you have to subscribe to view the listing details. That's not what I call free.

Here are my reviews of the two free websites for foreclosed homes that I found.  These sites contain a lot of listings and could be a very helpful resource for the new real estate investor who is trying to find foreclosure properties to invest in.

AllHud allows you to search for homes by geographic location. You click on a state on the map on the home page and are given a list of counties to choose from. The next page allows you to select the city or cities you are interested in within the county you have chosen. On the next page there is a "pre-qualification" form that you must fill out to view the listings. This is NOT a pre-qualification for a mortgage. It is just a way for the company to collect your contact information, probably so they can have some pesky telemarketer call and try to sell you some expensive real estate course. After you submit the form, there is a page of ads. Click the green arrow on that page to see the foreclosure listings.

In my test search, the site returned 21 properties for the test county, ranging in price from $1 to $145,000. They give you a list of the properties, including the address, and tell you whether they are listed or not. To get bid information for a property, you must fill out another contact form. I assume they will have a Realtor contact you. I didn't fill out this form to find out.

Free Foreclosure Database

Free Foreclosure Database allows you to search listings either by clicking on a state on the map or by filling in the desired information on a search form. Clicking on a state gives you a huge list of cities and towns to choose from. When I clicked on my test town, the site returned 8 results. This makes me believe that the listings on this site are much more extensive than at AllHud, since they only returned 21 results for the entire county.

All of the listings provided on this site gave the address of the property, and most of them also provided the listing real estate agent's name and phone number, or the name and phone number of the government agency in charge of the property. All of this information was provided free of charge, without asking so much as my name or e-mail address.

One drawback to this site is that you can only view listings for one city or town at a time. So if you are searching for a home within, say, 20 miles of a certain city, you'd have to click on the link for each suburb or nearby town individually. This could be extremely difficult if you are moving to a new area and don't know the names of all the nearby towns.

FreeForeclosureDatabase.com has the largest number of listings and doesn't require your contact information before you can view them. If you know which city you want to purchase a home in, there is no contest. In that case, Free Foreclosure Database is the best free website for foreclosed homes. However, if you're not sure which area you'd like to buy a house in, AllHud.com offers the convenience of viewing listings in an entire county at once. You pay for this convenience, however, by giving up your contact information.