Where do you find foreclosure realestate listings for free online?

Free Enclosure Database has a vast selection. of homes in the Olympia area.

Enclosed Homes’ results may be even more extensive.

@Spinel: Foreclosed.com (your second link) was fairly comprehensive, but you still have to pay for a membership to get more house details.

Not sure about WA state, but actual foreclosures are typically sold at the county’s courthouse and most states require the sale be public with public notices posted. There are usually certain online or print media that offer these ‘listings’ similar to businesses that post DBA notices. Usually, these sales require you to bring cash to make the purchase.

Most people when they talk about buying a foreclosure, however, mean they want to buy a home that’s been foreclosed. Once a bank forecloses on a home, unless it’s sold at the auction (usually meaning that a cash offer has come in exceeded what the bank was owed), it’s returned to the bank.

At this point, the bank will generally list the home with a Realtor. So if you plan on financing a home, you most likely are looking at buying the homes returned to the bank (these are called REOs – Real Estate Owned (by the bank)).

SO – if this is what you want, a local Realtor will be happy to sent you listings for free, arrange to show you the properties, etc. This costs you nothing directly, as the bank (seller) pays the commission for their services.

Also, if this is what you’re talking about, please don’t exclude traditional sales from your home search. Because once these ‘foreclosed’ homes are listed for sale, they are not always such a great deal.

Zillow.com will show some of the ones in various areas that you pick

I agree with everything @jpeterson wrote. Below are specifics from Thurston county WA concerning tax foreclosures, plus links to find US federal home foreclosures.

Fannie Mae
HomePath.com is “the Official foreclosure website owned by Fannie Mae”

Freddie Mac
Homesteps.com

HUD
US Department of Housing and Urban Development HUD Homes (temporarily offline until Feb 1, 2010 while they revamp)

Thurston County tax foreclosures
‘The only way to purchase a property from foreclosure is to bid at the annual auction held in January of each year. The auction occurs in an online environment. www.Bid4Assets.com facilitates our auction activity under contract with the County Treasurer. If you experience technical problems with the auction web site you can call 1.877.427.7387 for assistance.’
http://www.co.thurston.wa.us/treasurer/delinquent.htm

@jaytkay I spent three years at Black Lake near Oly. I’d go back there in a heartbeat. Loved that place.

@jpeterson @jaytkay You have both pointed out the important things to look for, I’ll just second your replies

as @CyanoticWasp had said, zillow.com is a very good website for searching homes. My being a realestate agent, you can get A LOT of info there. The house square footage and number of bedrooms etc. But, obviously that’s not your case, however you can also see that searching on their website finds you houses that are for sale, sold, and forclosed areas. You have to sign in though to get information, but for a slightly more limited pass (but more info that a non qualified member) you can see information. Or, you can obviously look at google.com and type in key words for houses in your area. But if you have ripped your hair out because there has been too much time spent on searching for houses and needing to pay to see the information, then of course there is zillow! hope this helps! :)

All the websites that have been listed are great!
The great think about our local MLS (NW Washington) is that they have added a feature that allows agents (incliding myself) to search homes that are bank owned. And this is a requried field so every agent entering a new listing must answer the question. So you could contact and agent and have them get you a list.