Only a fraction of homes sold at foreclosure in Dallas-Fort Worth go to outside buyers. Usually the lender takes over the property at monthly foreclosure auctions.

But when outside investors do make a buy, they get one heck of a deal.

During the first quarter of 2010, third-party buyers paid an average of 56 cents on the dollar for foreclosed homes in the D-FW area, according to a new report by Foreclosure Listing Service.

The discount is even greater in Dallas County, where foreclosed homes sold at auction to nonlender buyers went for 48 percent of appraised value.

"There are a lot of excited investors looking for deals," said George Roddy, president of the Addison-based foreclosure tracking firm. "Some lenders are starting to open their bids at prices lower than the unpaid loan balance."

The last time Foreclosure Listing Service looked at third-party sales – in September 2008 – about 5 percent of buyers were outside investors and paid an average of 60 cents on the dollar.

After lenders foreclose on a house and pay for fix-ups and real estate fees, the discounts when they resell the properties are usually less than 30 percent, Roddy said.

Only about 6 percent of foreclosed homes are purchased directly at foreclosure auction. During the first quarter, just 263 houses sold in the D-FW area out of 13,259 foreclosure filings.

"It's still a minute part of the market," Roddy said. "Investors buying at these auctions got a great bang for the buck."

But it's not easy to do, he warns.

"This is not like the infomercials make it out to be," Roddy said. "There is an awful lot of work involved, and you have to pay cash on the barrel."

The average auction price that investors paid in the first quarter of 2010 was $91,851. In 2008, the price was $103,629.

Roddy said most investors who buy foreclosures at auction take stacks of $5,000 and $10,000 cashier's checks to give to the sellers.

"There are people down there walking around with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cashier's checks," he said.

And not all the homes posted for foreclosure each month at area courthouses get sold.

"In the Dallas-Fort Worth metro, almost 35 percent of the homes posted for foreclosure during the first quarter were actually auctioned off," Roddy said.

In most cases, the lender delays the sale or works out a new agreement with the borrower. "Something occurred to prevent these postings from being auctioned on the day of the foreclosure sale," Roddy said.