Sequim foreclosures at deep discounts are hard to find. I’m surprised at how many people are diligently searching for Sequim foreclosures and Port Angeles foreclosures. There are four main foreclosure databases online for consumers. They are more accurately called “foreclosure information sources,” but for simplicity, I’ll refer to them as “foreclosure data sources.” Here they are with my analysis as a real estate foreclosure attorney and now real estate broker and Realtor.
Clallam County Foreclosure Data Source No. 1:
Foreclosure.com
This is the largest database in the country for foreclosures. Unfortunately, in Clallam County it is not complete. I subscribed to this service for almost two years myself so I could provide a service to my clients, but as I learned and as my clients have discovered, this database is incomplete. They offer a free trial, but you have to register to get access, and that annoys me. But there’s a bigger problem. They do not have a contract with the Clallam County Auditor’s office to scrape the data from the county’s site. I spoke with one of the founders of Foreclosure.com on the phone, and he was certainly nice but said that they had to focus on larger metropolitan areas, and he had no idea when, if ever, Clallam County would be included in their database. Right now the foreclosures that show up on their site are pulled randomly and automatically with their software but it is quite unreliable. So if you are serious about searching for foreclosures that are actually for sale, I do not recommend this site.
Clallam County Foreclosure Data Source No. 2:
RealtyTrac.com
I also tried subscribing to RealtyTrac.com for about a year, but I could repeat what I just wrote about Foreclosure.com. I do not recommend this site for the serious buyer or investor. There are foreclosure homes that show up for Clallam County, but again no one is actually entering these, and they do not have a contract to collect the information from the Auditor’s office, so this data is randomly pulled from various Internet sources, and many of these listings are not, I repeat not, for sale.
Clallam County Foreclosure Data Source No. 3:
USA-Foreclosure.com
(Northwest Trustee Services source)
Northwest Trustee Services certainly has a closer connection than the first two, and they hire our local appointed Trustee at the Friday morning sales. They do the paperwork on many foreclosures and adminster the sales. It appears they list their data with USA-Foreclosure.com. This site includes only the foreclosures they are adminstering. They also do not collect data from the County on all the foreclosures. This is a good source for foreclosures as long as you realize it is not the full database.
Clallam County Foreclosure Data Source No. 4:
Clallam County Auditor
(the original or source database)
Finally, we arrive at the original source of foreclosure data, the Clallam County Auditor’s office. This is where all real estate documents must be filed, including the Notice of Trustee’s Sale, which shows the balance owed, by whom, the scheduled date of the Trustee’s Sale, and the Trustee or Attorney handling the foreclosure. If you want reliable data, this is the place to go, and this includes every Foreclosure in Clallam County. The challenge is that this is a database of real estate records that is not designed for real estate investors or buyers. That means the searchable fields are not at all convenient for searching. You’ll have to spend hours every week to sift through thousands of real estate recordings to find a diamond in the rough. But let me save you a lot of time: You can filter your search by searching only the Notice of Trustee Sales. The results are still clumsy, but that does narrow it down a lot.
Finding a Sequim foreclosure or a Port Angeles foreclosure that is a good deal will be very hard, and when you find one, you can bet that many others have found it to, including some cash strong investors who know how to do their due diligence. There are some who work at this 40 hours a week. Do you have 40 hours a week to filter through 1,000 foreclosures to find one that you would be willing to buy so you can complete with other bidders? Now if we were in Las Vegas or Phoenix or Miami, this would be a totally different scenario, but in Sequim and Port Angeles, you can see why hunting for foreclosures is such a challenge.
I’ve handled many foreclosures as a real estate attorney, and as a Realtor I’ve represented clients buying foreclosures. If you want me to represent you, I’d be glad to. I don’t have the 40 hours a week to search for the steal of the century, but if you get lucky and find one, I can guarantee I know how to buy it. Some fees are negotiate, and others are not. You can email chuckmarunde@gmail.com or call 360-775-5424 anytime.
Last Updated on September 2, 2019 by Chuck Marunde
