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Yahoo brings foreclosed home listings to your fingertips

Elinor Mills Former Staff Writer
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service and the Associated Press.
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Elinor Mills

Yahoo has launched a new section on its Real Estate site called the Foreclosure Center that makes information you previously had to visit a county recorder's office to get easily accessible over the Web. And with the growing number of foreclosures, resulting mostly from risky mortgages that buyers can't make payments on, this data is more valuable to more people than ever before.

The site offers tips and other information on buying foreclosed homes, a list of the top cities for foreclosures (it's Detroit) and foreclosure trends by state (there have been more than 69,000 foreclosures in California since the beginning of the year and more than 2,000 foreclosure sales).

However, the listings don't give exact addresses; you have to pay to subscribe to RealtyTrac, Yahoo's partner on the foreclosure site, to get more information. And I didn't see any photos of property in my search.

Although the prices for the homes are appealing--there are 120 homes being sold for under $400,000 in San Francisco including 29 for under $10,000--experts say first-time and "average" home buyers should beware, according to an article in The San Francisco Chronicle.