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Generally an agent is not going to help. You need CASH. mountains of it. You go to the sale, make a bid, if none beats it you are about 1/2 way home. Some deposit, in cash or cashiers check is required upfront. People cannot bid without qualified funds.
While each State has its own details, and each courthouse has its own customs the basic process is very similar everywhere.
You have to pay the balance ALL CASH in a very short time. Then the court will confirm that the lender is prepared to drop their lien. You then will receive a deed so that you can get clear title to the property. That takes about a month. Then you can legally evict the foreclosed borrower and start repairing the damage they have likely done as they get booted out.
Fun all around, but it can be a great way to scoop up properties FAR BELOW their true market value IF the lender lets the place go for something close to what was owed on a mortgage that did not max out all equity...
Generally the "sheriff sale" is an auction format, some use sealed bid, some have a shout it out thing. The sheriff conducts the sale as a court order on behalf of the lender that won the foreclosure suit.
Other kinds of auctions exist and some lenders are using auction services to sell houses that they have taken possession of.
Info about the particulars in your area should be available from the court or clerk or sheriff, some places involve a third party to run the show.
In MD and PA the notice has to be listed in a "newspaper of general local circulation." In MD the County Treasurer handles the auction for unpaid taxes, for a mortgage foreclosure it's handled very quickly in Court.
The "notice of foreclosure" is generally published a LOOOONG time before the sheriff's sale. That lag is why there are those that say the "shadow inventory" of foreclosures is much larger. The reality is that lenders have conflicting ends that they wish to meet.
The shear volume of properties that could be turned around would massively destabilize many areas. It would be nice to magically turn "non performing assest" into cash, but there are just too many problems to make that happen...
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