Buying and selling real estate is an interesting and highly profitable business venture to be in if you play your cards right. You do not even have to be full time on the job. Most successful real estate agents do it only part time or as a money-making hobby.

There are real estate agents who represent real estate developers, those who build properties from the ground up. But selling brand new properties is not as profitable as selling seized or foreclosed properties. The profit margins for selling foreclosed properties are wider. Real estate agents of foreclosed properties buy these properties at their minimum values, and most often, far below their true market value. They then resell them at a much higher value.

These real estate agents depend on listings of foreclosed properties that banks, government agencies, and some web-based sources provide. These lists contain detailed information, such as location, complete address, status of the building or property, and foreclosed value. Banks and government offices or agencies post their listings for free. This is because they prefer to dispose of these non-performing assets as fast as possible to get the cash to invest somewhere else. It also means that they will not have to worry about paying real estate taxes and other fees. Web-based sources, however, require membership fees before they allow you access to their databases. This is how they earn from their services.

But if you want to get a better buy, ask instead for the pre-foreclosure listings. Properties listed there are valued at a much lower price than those listed at the foreclosed lists. This is because those at the foreclosed lists have already undergone a public auction, and therefore their values have risen a bit. The public foreclosure auction happens ninety days after the owner receives a notice of foreclosure for his property.