Has the recent news coverage on the astonishing numbers of foreclosures made you, the real estate investor, curious about expanding your business to invest in more foreclosed homes? Or perhaps you are a novice to real estate investing but can see the profit possibilities in purchasing a foreclosed home . Lenders definitely want to rid themselves of these distressed properties in order to avoid further losses and in hopes of recovering some of the money owed to them. Because of that , their foreclosed homes are usually severely discounted and afford the real estate investor a rare opportunity to buy at well under market value, with more potential for profit when it’s time to resell the home . The old method of locating these distressed properties was certainly labor-intensive and time consuming . The real estate investor would research agents to learn what foreclosed  properties they were representing and search the newspaper for ads on foreclosed homes . More timely information is listed online at one of the many new home foreclosure listings services that have come into existence since the foreclosure crisis began . These home foreclosure listings services provide the real estate investor with all the data needed to make an informed buying decision , in a single place and normally for a very small price . The real estate investor can look for properties in their own community or nationwide , by zip code or price , by size of home or number of bedrooms , and often will be provided with photos of the target property . With the criteria of what you are looking for, the home foreclosure listings service may also send the real estate investor email alerts when a similar property becomes available, and many include an RSS feed feature. Considering the time and effort saved by having all this information readily available, the home foreclosure listings service delivers good returns for the money .