Personal finance blogger Romeo of How We Prevent Wealth recently had a lucky near miss: he put down a deposit on a new rental home, then purely by chance learned that the same home was about to enter foreclosure. He was able to avoid the situation and get his deposit back, but he might not have been so lucky.

He explains how his mother saved the day:

Later in the night, for whatever reason, my mom was looking for homes in the Charlotte area that was soon going into foreclosure… In her search, she came across a local government website that had a listing of several hundred homes in the Charlotte area that was soon going into a foreclosure auction. Out of curiosity, I guess, my mother had asked me the address of the home that I had secured earlier in that day. I wondered why she cared, but after a minute of trying to get an answer why, I gave her the address.

After entering my address, sure enough, the home was listed to be auctioned beginning February 8th, 2011, despite the fact that I had just put down a security deposit on January 30th, 2011. My mother contends that the find was due to the grace of God, and at this point I have no other choice but to agree.

How can you prevent having this happen to you when looking for a place to rent, without divine intervention? Romeo’s mother was lucky enough to have access to a free regional website listing foreclosures, but that just covers North Carolina. One example is http://www.emailforeclosures.com, and we welcome suggestions of other, more attractive foreclosure listing sites.

Interestingly, Charlotte tops the list of current foreclosure hotspots that we posted yesterday.

Is Your Rented Home A Future Foreclosed Property? [How We Prevent Wealth]

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