An often-overlooked real estate profit opportunity, whether you want to buy your personal residence or an investment property, is acquiring a probate property. Few real estate agents and attorneys are familiar with how to acquire these bargain properties. And don't overlook "listed" probate homes - these homes & properties have gone through the process of probate and are just waiting on an offer.

Extreme patience is often required on "unlisted" or regular probate homes. According to a Ralph Nader study of the probate industry several years ago, it takes an average of three years to probate an estate. That means more than 3 million estates are currently in the process of probate proceedings in U.S. courts today. Most of these estates include one or more probate properties.

WHAT IS PROBATE? After an individual dies, probate is the process of proving the written will or last testament of a deceased person is genuine and then following the deceased's wishes in that document. Of course, if the deceased had a living trust, the assets can by-pass probate court costs and delays.

If the deceased died without a written will, called intestate succession, state probate law where the deceased was a resident determines who inherits the deceased's assets. Often, no known relatives can be located so the deceased's property "escheats" to the state and is sold for cash, which is then held by the state treasurer in case relatives are later found.

When assets of the deceased, such as a house, stocks and bonds, a car, bank accounts, and other personal property, are probated, the local probate court procedure gives creditors several months to file their unpaid claims against the deceased's estate.

An advantage of probate court proceedings to distribute estate assets is creditors have a deadline to file their claims. Legitimate debts claims, such as unpaid income taxes, mortgages, credit card bills, etc., are paid from the estate assets.

To pay the deceased's debts, before assets can be distributed to the heirs, estate assets such as the deceased's home and other real estate must often be sold to raise cash if there were insufficient liquid assets left by the deceased. These probate sales frequently result in below-market bargain-priced property for the buyers.

Because probate courts and estate executors or administrators are usually not very good at marketing estate assets to obtain the highest possible price, bargain hunters often track probate properties for many months, sometimes years. But the result can be a probate property purchase at a far below market value price. And again, do not overlook "listed" probate homes - they can easily be as big a bargain as a regular probate with much quicker results.

HOW TO FIND AND PURCHASE PROFITABLE PROBATE PROPERTIES. Each probate property is unique. These properties are often fixer-upper houses because elderly homeowners usually don't want to spend much money maintaining their residences.

Las Vegas Realty Resources can help you find exactly what you want in a Probate property. Just call or e-mail us today and let us know the specifics about your search. Let us know if you are buying all-cash or if you have a lender or need loan information. Also let us know if you are interested in buying a "fixer" probate home and becoming a GreenHab Group partner. Call us now at 702-812-2525.

(* Here is another website at  http://riversofgold.net/ - it is FULL of Probate Home information*)