Bank Owned Properties Reviews

Editor's Star Ratings:

Foreclosure Listings:
Searching Tools:
Features:
Ease of Use / Navigation:
Ease of Joining / Registration:
Customer Support:
Value for Money:
Overall Star Rating:

Membership Costs:

• Trial period costs $3.95 for one week
• Monthly membership option costs $34.95 per month (approx $8.75 per week.)
• Annual membership option costs $99.55 (approx $1.92 per week)

Features:

• Generally includes about 2,000,000 homes
• Listings include:
  • pre foreclosures
  • foreclosure auctions
  • various forms of REOs

• Updated frequently
• Mortgage rates information
• Mortgage calculator
• In business since 1998
• Includes bank-owned homes news and facts
• Secure website
• Cheap 7 day trial

Editor's Verdict:

Although the onus here is, as the name suggests, on bank-owned properties, this site also offers extensive listings of other types of REO properties, HUDs, Freddie Mac's and Fannie Mae's.

The website is simply laid out and straightforward to use. The tone of foreclosure listings sites can vary greatly from the impersonally professional to the wildly enthusiastic, and Bank Owned Properties veers more towards the latter - just witness the profusion of exclamation marks. This approach has the advantage of feeling less intimidating and is clearly designed to make the foreclosure market feel friendly and accessible. It also has the disadvantage of not exactly projecting that sense of professional gravitas that makes you feel a website is serious about what it does and impeccably trustworthy.

Searching for properties on this website is simple enough, mainly via a basic state/city/zip search box. This is fine but not as flexible as the range of options some of the better sites offer. The listings details you get when you click on a property are likewise adequate but not exceptional.

There is a little introductory information about bank owned properties on the welcome page. This is fine in itself, but any good foreclosures site needs a fairly comprehensive guide and FAQ explaining just how foreclosures work and how to make them work for you. And preferably a glossary of relevant legal terms as well. This is, after all, a fairly complex area beset with a fair number of legal niceties that you really need to appreciate if you are to successfully navigate the foreclosures maze. This sort of detail is a bit lacking here, making Bank Owned Properties perhaps better suited to users who already know a bit about the foreclosures market in general and bank-owned properties in particular. So if you need to ask, for example, what Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's are, you won't find the answer here.

In terms of extras, there isn't much here to speak of, bar a smattering of news and a solitary mortgage calculator - the best sites will offer you half a dozen different calculators and much more besides.

The majority of foreclosure listings websites offer a 7 day trial membership period. What distinguishes them is that some are free, some claim to be free but charge you an "activation" or "administration" fee and some are just cheaper than the regular membership. The trial period offered by Bank Owned Properties falls into the latter category. The first week costs about four bucks and subsequent weeks are billed at the normal rate, which is almost three times as much.

As well as offering a free trial, the best foreclosure websites are distinguished by how easy it is to find their membership rates on the website. In the case of Bank Owned Properties you have to dig around a bit to find out how much you'll be agreeing to let them hoover out of your bank account every month, which is a shame. As a consumer you should be able to find fee information featured fairly prominently. Ideally you should see the price featured right next to the spiel about what they're offering you on the homepage, or at the very least at the top of the page you visit to sign up for the trial period (which automatically transitions into a paying membership). How else are you going to be able to compare different services? Greater transparency is better for you and ultimately better for the market too, so hiding the price away serves only the short-term interests of the site itself, and that's not good business.

It's not good advertising either, because the price you'll eventually find if you read through the small print of their terms and conditions is actually slightly cheaper than most other foreclosure site subscriptions. So why not shout about it? The annual membership option is cheaper again, actually much cheaper than the trial price, so even if you only anticipate using the service for a few months it might be worth considering paying the annual fee.

Customer support is mainly via email, but there are also postal and fax addresses, and a phone line for billing enquiries only. If you want to talk to another human being about anything other than how Bank Owned Properties are taking your money then you're out of luck.

Bankownedproperties.org offers an average amount of detail about a decent range of properties for a slightly better than average price. There is no free trial and a distinct paucity of bonus features, transparency and educational resources, so whilst there are worse deals around, you could still do a lot better by going elsewhere.

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