Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Maine

You need to see if the property is listed for sale and/or identify if the property has been foreclosed on. If not yet foreclosed upon, the owners may offer the bank a short-sale option to avoid a judgment. I'm a Maine broker as well. Please contact me if you need assistance.

You first need to become pre qualified with your own lender up to an amount to be able to buy the house. If that is not possible there is no point in trying to buy the house. If that can be done, there are 2 possibilities- buying it during foreclosure, or, buying it at sale/after Judgment.

In order to buy it during foreclosure the current owners need to list it for sale with the MLS system and a broker, and you can submit an offer based on fair market value, even if its less than the amount owed in the foreclosure. The foreclosing bank will need to approve the sale. That is really the only way during foreclosure.

You can monitor the foreclosure process and bid at the auction, but you need to be sure your financing will allow you to close within 30 days and conventional financing often will not. You can also monitor, and if the property is bought back by the Lender, it will be placed in their REO department and eventually will come back onto the market with a broker, and you will have the same chance as anyone else to buy it at presumably fair market value.