Foreclosure is a process in which a piece of real estate becomes the property of a lending institution due to the legal owner's inability to make scheduled payments on the mortgage or deed of trust.

Foreclosures are spreading all over the country, which means there are opportunities everywhere. Lenders are being overwhelmed with properties they inherit because of bad loans. It is safe to say that most lenders will accept a short sale, however, you may come across one or two who will not discount. If the numbers work out for the lender they will do it.

If you are an investor then you may want to check with some local realtors to see if they are willing to work with you to take advantage of the many foreclosures on the market today. Real-estate is not real good right now, but it is great for those who are willing to buy up the great deals and wait for a better market. That better market will come again to sell and profit.

No one wants to give up their home, but they may be forced to move fast if they lose a job and need to sell. You should be advertising in the paper on a regular basis for buying homes and see what the market brings in. You might be surprised at the great deals that come out if you wait for them to arrive.

The lender will usually request a hardship letter, a HUD-1, and a financial statement from the homeowner. A hardship letter is telling the lender why the homeowners are not making their mortgage payments. Sometimes they will request bank statements, pay stubs, income statements, and so on. Be prepared to send them everything they ask for because if you don't, your short sale will not be accepted. Do not waste any time! Send everything the lender asks for back ASAP. It usually takes at least 4 weeks or more to get an answer back from the lender, so you can't afford to wait. If the auction is approaching, you can ask to extend or postpone the auction which in most cases they will, if they know it is a legitimate offer.

Experienced foreclosure investors know that to find homeowners in trouble early, in pre-foreclosure before their competitors, will make them the largest profits. On the other hand, those same homeowners in default desperately seek help to avoid a horrible, unknown fate called foreclosure.

One of the top reasons for this is that banks' and other lenders' are chiefly motivated to get rid of these properties, and recover whatever amounts of money they can for them, as soon as possible. They don't necessarily want, nor do they have the time or know-how, to extract the maximum sales price for a given property.