Building a Real Estate Foreclosure Tracker with Public Records

Building a Real Estate Foreclosure Tracker with Public Records Foreclosure data is public information in the United States, but it's scattered across county clerk websites, court systems, and government databases. Investors, researchers, and journalists who can aggregate this data gain a significant informational advantage. Let's build a Python-based foreclosure tracker. Why Track Foreclosures? Foreclosure filings are leading indicators of economic stress in specific markets. They help real estate investors find below-market properties, help journalists investigate predatory lending, and help researchers study housing market dynamics. Data Sources Foreclosure data comes from several public sources: County clerk/recorder websites — Notice of Default, Lis Pendens filings HUD foreclosure listings — government-owned properties Court records — judicial foreclosure proceedings Census/ACS data — demographic context HUD Foreclosure Listings Scraper import requests from bs4 import BeautifulSoup