How to Find Jobs for Your Foreclosure Cleanup Business in 2011 and Beyond

Dec. 23, 2010 - PRLog -- Subcontracting is a large industry, and as a foreclosure cleanup enterprise, if you're not tapping into lucrative contracts available, you're missing a huge piece of the pie for business growth in 2011 and beyond.

HUD's Contracts with Larger Property Preservation Companies

Foreclosure cleaning companies handle everything from changing door locks to boarding windows and doors, to trashouts, cleaning, yard maintenance, gutter cleaning, pressure washing, vacancy inspections, painting, minor repairs, tarping roofs and more. Larger Management and Marketing (M&M) Contractors market and manage single-family properties via HUD. The M&M Contractors often contract work out to larger property preservation companies.

Help Wanted by Larger Contractors

These bigger property preservation companies are often assigned properties in many different regions of the United States. More often than not, they are responsible for maintenance of homes in more than one state at a time, via their various offices and divisions. The property preservation companies need smaller subcontractors to assist them in securing and maintaining their foreclosure inventory, especially now with the number of foreclosures on the market.

Foreclosure Statistics

A RealtyTrac.com report previously revealed that one in every 171 U.S. households had received a foreclosure filing; today, over 65% of the nation's tracked metro areas posts year-over-year increases in foreclosure activity.  

Further, a foreclosure data tracking service stated foreclosure filings were reported on 332,172 properties in October of 2010; and in the third quarter of 2010, foreclosure homes accounted for 25 percent of all U.S. residential sales. (Nevada, Arizona, and California posted the highest percentage of distressed property sales during the third quarter, with Nevada leading the pack, accounting for 54 percent of all homes sold.)

A recent article on MSNBC stated, “More than 4 million homeowners with a mortgage were at least one month behind on their payments at the end of June, according to the latest data from the Mortgage Bankers Association, and a record 500,000 had entered the foreclosure process.” It further indicated, “Each day from July through September, more than 2,700 Americans lost their homes in foreclosure.”

Don't Miss the Subcontracting Boat

The larger companies need help on the frontlines in maintaining and securing vacant and abandoned homes. That's where the smaller foreclosure cleanup businesses come into play. But too often smaller foreclosure cleanup companies miss the boat because they are either not set up formally (properly licensed and insured) to handle formal subcontracting work, or, they don't actively seek out subcontracting work from these larger companies. (http://www.e-junkie.com/stonecottagebooks)

To find subcontracting work, smaller foreclosure cleanup companies can do several things. Here are some suggestions:

1) Contact HUD's Arms: Go to HUD's website to find the larger M&M contractors and contact them directly seeking contact information for their property preservation preferred companies. Here's a sample telephone script: "Hi, I'm John Smith from XYZ Company. I am a foreclosure cleanup company located in ABC City and I'd like to offer my foreclosure cleanup services on a subcontracting level. To whom should I direct my correspondence?"

2) Search Engines: Use Internet search engines like Bing, AltaVista, Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc. to search terms like the following, always including "property preservation" in your chosen search terms: foreclosure cleanup jobs, subcontracting opportunities for property preservation companies, property preservation vendor application, property preservation work, property preservation jobs, foreclosure cleanup contracts, etc. These terms should land you on several inks. Consider bypassing the smaller companies that are trying to get work like your company, and target the larger property preservation businesses with homes in several states.

3) REO Departments: Research and contact banks with real estate owned ("REO") departments in your area and first offer your company's services to them directly. Then ask for information about their company's preferred primary vendors, explaining you'd like to offer your company's cache of foreclosure cleanup services to assist them in servicing the bank's REO listings in a timely manner.

4) Foreclosure Homes: Visit some actual properties that have been foreclosed upon in your area and peek at the stickers in the window, on the doors, or in the homes to see which larger property preservation company is handling that home. They usually have brightly-colored orange or yellow stickers holding their company's contact info.

Call these companies, email them, write them and/or plan to visit them to inform them that you have visited one of their homes and want to offer your business' foreclosure cleaning services to their company on a formal subcontracting basis. To locate foreclosures in your area, plan to scour your city's multiple listing service ("MLS") system online to find properties. Also, visit websites like that of HUD or Bid Select, or search for foreclosures in your geographic area.

Formalizing Your Company

Subcontracting opportunities exist in numbers for the smaller foreclosure cleanup business. The trick is to formalize your enterprise with the proper insurance and. Also, secure a Tax ID for your company via the Internal Revenue Service's website for free so you can apply for these vendor opportunities to grow your foreclosure cleanup business.

Good luck growing your foreclosure cleanup business with subcontracts in 2011 and beyond!

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Foreclosure Cleanup, LLC, authoring company of How to Start a Foreclosure Cleanup Business: FREE Articles and Advice, http://fcindustry.hypermart.net/blog.htm, and How to Start a Foreclosure Cleanup Business Books, Reports and Forms, http://www.e-junkie.com/stonecottagebooks.