You don’t need to show up at courthouse auctions or comb through legal filings. These days many banks sell foreclosed homes through real estate agents.

To find listings, look on sites that specialize in foreclosed properties, such as realtytrac.com and foreclosurepoint.com. The local multiple-listing service often has selections as well. (The fact that the home is in foreclosure is not always highlighted in the MLS, but it’s often mentioned in the description.) Finally, some agents specialize in foreclosures, so call your local realtor’s office and ask for a referral.

2. IT’S BEST TO BUY FROM A BANK
If you buy a fore-closed home at an auction before the bank repossesses it, you’ll have to pay in cash, and you usually cannot inspect the property. You may also later discover that there are liens against it.

When a bank takes back a home, however, it will clear any outstanding liens. Plus, when you buy a bank-owned property, you can inspect it beforehand, and you can finance the purchase with a mortgage. Leave your suitcase full of cash at home.

3. BRING IN A CONTRACTOR BEFORE YOU BUY
Many foreclosed homes have been abandoned, some even vandalized, and they often require major repairs. “One mistake a lot of people make is underestimating how much work it needs and the cost,” says Rick Sharga of RealtyTrac.

To avoid getting stuck with a surprise bill, ask a contractor to give you an estimate of how much the restoration will cost and how long it will take. Many will do so for free in hopes of winning your business.

4. BID LOW
Banks aren’t necessarily selling foreclosures at fire-sale prices; some are listed at market value, says Gene Hacker, a broker in Orange County, Calif. So be prepared to haggle. The bigger the inventory of foreclosed homes the bank has and the longer the property has sat, the greater your chances of nabbing a great deal, says Chris Matty of Fore-closurePoint.com.

Set your initial offer about 20% below market price-or more if your area has a lot of foreclosures.

5. BE PREPARED TO WAIT
While some lenders are getting back to bidders within 36 hours, others are dealing with an enormous backlog that can hold up their response for as long as three months. While you wait, someone can trump you with a higher offer.

To boost your chances at scoring a home you love, have multiple properties in mind, and get your financing pre-approved before you bid. Even if the lender says it has another offer, follow up every week-these deals can often fall through.

Construction of new homes and apartments fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 510,000 units, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That was the second-lowest rate in the department’s records, which go back 50 years.

The decline was more than many economists had expected and took off some of the glow from a reported increase in February. The February figure was also revised downward in Thursday’s report.

Applications for building permits fell 9% in March to a 513,000 seasonally adjusted annual pace, the lowest on record.

Michael Larson, a housing analyst at Weiss Research, says the numbers are being strongly affected by the starts in the multifamily home segment, whose numbers tend to swing widely.

“Builders are having a hard time competing with these low prices on almost-new and foreclosed homes,” Larsen says. “You’re seeing things getting a little less bad on the housing arena, but there is still a market that is oversupplied. Nothing suggests an imminent recovery.”

Reduced housing starts could help shorten the time necessary to clear the nation’s oversupply of available homes.

The number of newly built homes for sale has shrunk from a peak of about 555,000 three years ago to about 300,000 today.

New construction has fallen in part due to the difficulty builders have getting credit, consolidations within the industry, and the fact that home prices are often coming in below construction cost.

Housing starts “are at extraordinarily low levels,” says Mark Zandi at Moody’s Economy.com. “We are at a bottom in terms of construction. It’s very hard on the home-building industry.”

He predicts new construction will pick up by this time next year.

The Commerce Department reported last month that home construction had increased more than 20% in February. That was revised in Thursday’s report to 17.2%.

“The numbers are bouncing around, which is not that much of a surprise,” says Joel Naroff at Naroff Economic Advisors. “Single-family starts were essentially flat. That gives me some hope that that segment of the market is starting to stabilize.”

WHEN AN EX-managing director of hedge fund Fortress teams up with Sotheby’s in a real estate venture, you know something funny is going on in the luxury residential market.

But that’s basically what happened last month when George Graham, formerly of Fortress’s Drawbridge Special Opportunities Fund, joined a real estate auction house that works closely with Sotheby’s International Realty and other firms to sell off luxury homes.

Graham is CEO of Concierge Auctions, founded in 2006 by a well-connected broker in South Florida. The company is looking to make hay from an uptick in luxury real estate auctions.

“There is a pipeline of multimillion-dollar properties that are underwater,” says Graham. “In most of these areas the homes aren’t selling. There’s a multiyear supply.” Concierge’s pitch to a seller is simple: Your house won’t sell on the open market for years. You may not get the price you want with an auction, but it’s better to have an exit than to be stuck with the carrying costs on, say, a $20 million home-or worse, enter foreclosure. (As Concierge’s website puts it, “The times have changed. Change with them.”)

But the real focus for Concierge is on the other half of the equation: the lenders, who in this segment of the market are increasingly looking for an exit too. Since the costs to the bank when a luxury home goes into foreclosure are so much higher than on a regular home, lenders are open to negotiating short sales, in which the bank accepts less than the amount of the mortgage. With home sales stalled, an auction is the fastest way to a price. “You get market value without dragging out the process,” says Graham, who sees a “wave” of high-end mortgages headed for default.

Concierge is hoping Graham’s relationships with lenders from his years at Fortress and, before that, investment bank Salomon Bros., will generate business from banks looking for an out. (Concierge takes a cut of the final sale.)

In July the company auctioned off a Boca Raton, Fla., mansion owned by the head of private equity firm Royal Palm Capital Partners. The property was on the market for three years, cut from $24.9 million to $21.9 million. The final price won’t be revealed until the deal closes, but it probably won’t cover the mortgage, said to be $12.5 million. Either way it’s money for the bank-and Concierge Auctions.