Why go to all this trouble? Just go to realtor.com (no relationship) and enter your desired parameters thusly: https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Oakland_CA...

> You can buy a house from the government for $3,000

With $120,000 owed in back taxes due by you upon purchase. Also the structure is derelict and will have to be destroyed before anything can be done with it.

It's hard to actually use this map and inspect individual homes. Clicking into a listing replaces the map view, so you lose the context of where you were looking, and the way the dots animate in make it harder to visually remember where you were. And you can't zoom in further to distinguish multiple overlapping properties.

I've gained a taste for a yt channel that shows depopulated towns across the US.

It seems to me that local governments must also have tons of properties to sell or give away. The real issue is that these are in places where people don't usually want to live.

I'm guessing since the map is price limited there are likely many more properties out west except they are higher priced? $800 for a small chunk of vacant land behind something industrial near what looks like a lonely highway exit somewhere inland California. Then the East half has lots of reasonable looking homes. I hope the people left behind and homeless are getting by.

A few years ago an apartment in my building was up for a foreclosure sale. Price looked good but turned out it was literally impossible to figure out (1) how much or the original dead beat's mortgage i would be on the hook for (2) tax burden and (3) unpaid coop fees i would owe.

So even as finance save person already in the building, it was impossible to figure out what I'd be getting/owing. Really ruined my taste for these things.

Do you pull data from non-HUD sources too?

https://www.realestatesales.gov/

Over the weekend, I pulled some data from my website to find the cheapest homes you can buy from the US federal government. The outliers (a $3,000 house in Flint, MI) are often in quite a state of disrepair, but there are lots of...lots...which are in reasonable condition across many US states.

Well, yes, I have in fact always dreamed of owning an abandoned house in Flint, MI

How does this work?

I hover the mouse over a dot and a pop-up appears nearby, but when move the mouse away from the dot to click the bubble, the bubble closes.

To paint a picture in your mind, this is the digital equivalent of being a rag & bone man scraping by to find a place to live somewhere, anywhere, across the country. Demand better of yourself if you're going to attempt to go to such lengths.

Thanks for this. Tip jar?

[dead]

A lot of these houses probably come with massive debt attached, so really buying any of these homes is a ripoff, even if you just wanted them for the land. You will owe way more than what you paid. This website would be more interesting if it actually showed you the true cost. As it stands, it’s clickbait.