More than 10,000 current college students nationwide answered the call during the 2011 Foreclosure.com Scholarship Program, submitting essays of 800 to 1,000 words or more that answered the following question:

“You have acquired $150,000 in cash to be used specifically for a distressed real estate purchase such as foreclosures. Outline a detailed strategy that ensures the maximum return on investment, whether it is in terms of financial profit or personal satisfaction … or both.”

Cindy Clinton, a freshman at Parsons – The New School located in New York, N.Y., however, was voted to the head of the class by our panel of third-party judges, winning the $5,000 top prize.

“I am so grateful and excited to have been chosen,” said Cindy. “It is very challenging funding a higher education. Therefore, I thank Foreclosure.com for assisting students in achieving their goals by providing this scholarship. This award is a great financial help, putting me one step closer to fulfilling my dream of becoming a fashion designer. So, thank you, thank you, thank you!”

The program, which ran from Jan. 31 to Dec. 1, 2011, also awarded four $1,000 scholarships to the contest semifinalists (in alphabetical order):

• Glenn Bonadio from El Paso, Texas, attending El Paso Community College
• Zachery Eberl from Seattle, Wash., attending University of Washington
• Mishay Kalan from Washington D.C., attending Georgetown University
• David Katz from Los Angeles, Calif., attending University of Southern California

In addition to the five cash prizes in the form of scholarships, these winning entries will be featured on Foreclosure.com. To read Cindy’s winning essay visit the Foreclosure.com Article Center (www.foreclosure.com/articlecenter/foreclosure-com-scholarship-program-2011-winning-essay/). Essays from the other four semifinalists will soon be added to the website.

“The submissions continue to get better every year and our judges have met the task of picking exceptional essays,” said Foreclosure.com Director of Education, Linda Yates. “It was exciting to see how creative the essays were in response to this year’s topic and to get a glimpse into the applicants’ individual strategies and thought processes.”

In addition to all the students who responded, Foreclosure.com would like to acknowledge the esteemed panel of judges who selected the five finalists:

• Susan Wachter, University of Pennsylvania
• Michael Kraten, PH.D., CPA, Sawyer Business School at Suffolk University
• Maureen Kraten MBA, CMC, Sacred Heart University

“Thank you to all of our judges for their time and hard work,” said Yates. “We appreciated their dedicated service to this program.”

Yates indicated that the company has already announced the 2012 Foreclosure.com Scholarship Program, which will once again run for the entire year until Dec. 1, 2012. To read the new topic, as well as learn more about the eligibility/submission requirements, visit the Foreclosure.com scholarship page (www.foreclosure.com/scholarship).

Foreclosure.com introduced its scholarship program in 2009. Since that time, the company has awarded 15 deserving college students throughout the United States with a total of $27,000 in scholarship money.

Foreclosure.com today announced that the deadline to submit essays for its 2011 scholarship program has expired and that it will now begin the review process of the nearly 10,000 submissions received throughout the 10-month contest.

At the beginning of the year, the company challenged college students throughout the nation, regardless of major, to answer the following question:

“You have acquired $150,000 in cash to be used specifically for a distressed real estate purchase. Outline a detailed strategy that ensures the maximum return on investment, whether it is in terms of financial profit or personal satisfaction … or both.”

Entries, which were required to be original and be at least 800 words in length and no more than 2,000, came from far and wide across the United States, including University of Southern California (USC), Syracuse University, Duke University, Ohio State University (OSU) and Arizona State University (ASU), among others.

In total, the Foreclosure.com 2011 Scholarship Program tallied 9,636 essay submissions.

“We are thrilled with the tremendous amount of submissions we received for our 2011 scholarship program,” said Linda Yates, Foreclosure.com Director of Education. “Now it’s time for our esteemed panel of university professors throughout the nation to determine the five talented winners. We appreciate those educational institutions that have supported our program by sharing/posting the link to our scholarship page for the benefit of their students.”

Foreclosure.com will review each submission and determine the top 20 based on writing ability, creativity, originality and overall excellence. The company will then provide the top 20 submissions to an outside panel of third-party expert judges, whose collective impressions will determine the five scholarship-winning entries.

The grand prize winner with the best essay will receive a $5,000 scholarship, while the four runners up will each receive $1,000 each to put toward their higher educations. In addition, all scholarship winners will have their essays featured on Foreclosure.com’s scholarship page.

Foreclosure.com expects to announce the five winners of its 2011 scholarship program on or around Jan. 31, 2012. In the meantime, already plans to offer a similar scholarship program in 2012 based on the continued success and increasing participation among college students.

“The 2012 scholarship topic will be announced very soon,” said Yates. “We encourage college students to keep checking Foreclosure.com for all the details. It is an exciting time of year as we determine winners and brainstorm next year’s foreclosure topic. We look forward to even more creative and well-thought-out essays in 2012 and beyond.”

Foreclosure.com introduced its scholarship program in 2009. Since that time, the company has (or will) award(ed) 15 deserving college students throughout the United States with a total of $27,000 in scholarship money.

For complete scholarship details visit the Foreclosure.com (http://www.foreclosure.com/scholarship) scholarship page.

Foreclosure.com is extending Black Friday throughout the month of December!

We are so grateful for our newsletter readers and website visitors. We started Foreclosure.com more than a decade ago with the goal of making it the number one-ranked online destination for distressed property listings.

And here we are, 13 years later, thanking you for helping us make that vision a reality.

To commemorate the holiday season this year, we are excited to announce a treasure trove of our most generous money-saving opportunities ever, which we designed especially with you in mind. Enjoy extended free site membership, discounted foreclosure and short sale educational programs and much more.

As always, we also invite you to check out the myriad free tools available on our site to help make your foreclosure and short sale searches a success. It would be just silly to miss our free On Demand webinars, free foreclosure listing alerts and everything else that we offer at absolutely no charge.

The November 2011 edition of Foreclosure.com’s free educational newsletter, “Investment Exchange,” is now available, which will help you uncover the unbelievable wealth that might just be waiting for you right around the corner — literally — thanks to an unprecedented package of discounted resources.

We’ve never offered such an amazing bundle of deals and zero-cost learning opportunities to kickstart the real estate investment careers of our website visitors. So, take advantage of the free, money-saving offers that we are gifting to you this holiday season before it’s too late.

And well before all the New Year “resolutioners” flood the market.

To read this month’s free educational newsletter from Foreclosure.com and cash-in on our limited-time holiday offerings CLICK HERE.

Pictured above, Apple’s Steve Jobs from our resident Mac maniac.

Sure, Halloween is still a few days away, but at Foreclosure.com we decided to celebrate a little early to ensure a fun, frightening Friday.

Several (but not all) of our employees were up for the task, coming into work today all decked out and even decorating their collective departments in specific themes. Prizes will be awarded later for the best costume, as well as the department that best came together to demonstrate their spooky team spirit.

Check out how the employees at Active Data Technologies, umbrella company to Foreclosure.com, get ready for Halloween. From zombies to federal agents, the Foreclosure.com crew goes all out when any holiday comes around:

Dorky developer tailgaters who were cool enough to pack the cooler full of beer (for later).

Agent Services’ very own Cat Woman. Meow!

Customer service SWAT team takes down one of their own, finally, for affectionately naming his car, “Monica.”

Meet our Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Al Capone. Insert snarky, clever joke here.

Human resources and accounting join forces to deliver a modern-era “Beverly Hillbillies” cast.

And last but not least, our ghoulish IT department temporarily don their costumes before tending to a scary emergency server situation.

This is Halloween, this is Halloween …

While growing up, Halloween meant trick or treating in the cold windy evenings in rural Idaho, bobbing for apples at friends houses and eating candy to a point of feeling sick.

Now that I’m all grown up those traditions changed, but the fun never has.

Take a sneak peak at what is going on in our corporate headquarters, which is located in Boca Raton, Fla., in this creepy blog entry right here. My coworkers really get into the spirit of the season, so I decided to take you with me for a quick tour of how spooky it can be here at Foreclosure.com (a.k.a. Active Data Technologies!)

Department contests will be held later in the week for the best costumes, decorated work spaces and much more. Just all around fun!

Don’t let the ghosts or goblins scare you away from finding that great deal. BOO!

Foreclosure.com, which partners with many of the largest names in the online real estate world, as well as individual Realtors® and small- to mid-sized online destinations, provides affiliates with small slices of customized code that they can add to their websites, which pulls content from its database of more than 2 million distressed real estate listings.

“Overnight, a local real estate agent can enhance his or her website with millions of monetized listings,” said Stephen Chip, Foreclosure.com Director of Business Development. “We provide our affiliates with an awesome selection of one-of-a-kind solutions that leverage our unrivaled data.”

Our creative suites of affiliate tools and solutions include, but are not limited to:

• WordPress plugin (with buyer lead capture option)
• Lava® Listings and Lava® Lead
• Framed widget (with buyer lead capture option)
• Localized “foreclosure deals” widget
• Zip code search banner
• Private labels
• Banners and text ads
• RSS and XML feeds
• RSP data feed

The benefits of becoming a Foreclosure.com affiliate are not solely limited to revenue returns, which is at least 25 percent of the fees paid for each referred subscriber. Foreclosure.com also provides its affiliates with incredible amounts of unique, up-to-date and high-quality content that instantly enriches the online experiences for their visitors.

Additional benefits of the Foreclosure.com Affiliate Program include, but are not limited to:

• Participation in the program is FREE with no long-term commitment
• Monitor revenue with access to real-time traffic statistics and commission totals
• Receive eye-catching, original creatives such as banners and text links
• Ensure that you get credit for referring business at all times with a 90-day cookie

“Our affiliates enjoy amazing conversion rates — and unbelievable commission checks,” said Chip. “If you have a real estate-facing website or just want to offer your visitors the best distressed real estate listings, our affiliate program is a no brainer.”

For more information on the Foreclosure.com Affiliate Program, or to sign up to become an affiliate, visit the affiliate section on Foreclosure.com today.

Popular program returns after wildly successful campaigns in 2009 and 2010 awarded $18,000 in educational grants to financially-assist 10 students

Foreclosure.com today announced that it will once again reward five college students with scholarships who can best provide a solution(s) to its latest essay topic for 2011.

The subject of the Foreclosure.com Scholarship Program 2011 is as follows:

“You’ve acquired $150,000 in cash to be used specifically for a distressed real estate purchase. Outline a detailed strategy that ensures the maximum return on investment, whether it’s in terms of financial profit or personal satisfaction … or both.”

Foreclosure.com, which received thousands of entries from students during its scholarship programs in 2009 and 2010, will accept written essays/plans (800-word minimum, 2,000-word maximum) through its website (http://www.foreclosure.com/scholarship) from Jan. 1, 2011, to Dec. 1, 2011, which is nine months longer than the previous two programs.

Five winners will be selected at the conclusion of the contest and will share $9,000 in allotted scholarship funds. The top prize is a $5,000 scholarship and four $1,000 grants will be awarded to the runners up.

“Determining our plan of action in multiple scenarios is the way to be prepared,” said Linda Yates, Foreclosure.com Director of Education. “This year’s topic is a thought-provoking question. It will encourage students to creatively think about how they would approach a real estate investment before being placed ‘in the moment’ with all the real-word emotional tugs that influence such a major decision.”

In addition to the five cash prizes in the form of scholarships, totaling $9,000, these solutions will be featured on Foreclosure.com.

All students must read and agree to the scholarship rules, which are located on the Foreclosure.com contest page at http://www.foreclosure.com/scholarship, before submitting their entries for review.

“It has been rewarding to watch the program grow firsthand and to pose challenging questions for our students to answer as they begin to understand the mechanics of real-world economics,” said Luanne Bryant, Foreclosure.com Partner Relations Manager, who oversees the company’s scholarship program. “This is our third year offering the scholarship program. And we’ve continued to maintain a positive outlook on the current housing market conditions, with this year’s topic specifically focusing on investment and opportunity.”

Foreclosure.com has issued $18,000 in scholarship money to 10 college students nationwide since the program was introduced in 2009.

For complete details and submission requirements/instructions for the Foreclosure.com Scholarship Program 2011 visit http://www.foreclosure.com/scholarship.

Boca Raton, Fla. — Feb. 15, 2011 — Foreclosure.com today announced the winners of its 2010 scholarship program, which rewards five current college students with a total of $9,000 to put toward their higher educations.

More than 1,000 current college students nationwide answered the call during the 2010 Foreclosure.com Scholarship Program, submitting essays of 1,000 words or more that answered the following question:

“How can education at the high school level help avert and/or minimize a future foreclosure crisis?”

Kaitlyn Shumelda, a junior at University at Albany, State University of New York (Albany — SUNY) located in Albany, N.Y., however, was voted to the head of the class by our panel of judges, winning the $5,000 top prize.

“Receiving this scholarship is incredible,” said Kaitlyn. “Not only does it lift a big financial weight off my shoulders, but this amazing experience has taught me something very important.”

Kaitlyn went on to describe how she almost didn’t submit her winning entry, even after she had “put so much into it.”

“I just didn’t think I’d win,” she said. “But I figured I’d at least give it the good ‘ole college try, and I’m now so glad I did! I want to thank everyone at Foreclosure.com for this opportunity – it’s inspired me to do so more because now I know I’m capable of doing so much more. Thank you so much!”

The program, which ran from Sept. 1 to Dec. 31, 2010, also awarded four $1,000 scholarships to the contest semifinalists:

• Cortni Merritt, University of Central Florida
• Kara Karpman, Duke University
• James Balagia, Austin Community College
• Kim Huffstetler, University of Phoenix

In addition to the five cash prizes in the form of scholarships, totaling $9,000, these solutions are featured on Foreclosure.com.

To read Kaitlyn’s winning essay, as well as the others from our four semifinalists, please visit the Foreclosure.com scholarship page (www.foreclosure.com/scholarship).

“It is so important that high school students understand what real life is like outside the classroom – these are the future homeowners of America,” said Foreclosure.com Director of Education, Linda Yates. “Financial mistakes of the past can be avoided in the future through timely education and life lessons.”

In addition to all the students who responded, Foreclosure.com would like to acknowledge the esteemed panel of judges who selected the five finalists:

• Susan Wachter, University of Pennsylvania
• Michael Kraten, PH.D., CPA, Sawyer Business School at Suffolk University
• Maureen Kraten MBA, CMC, Sacred Heart University

“It’s been a delight to once again work first-hand with the scholarship program and see it evolve and grow into such a success,” said Luanne Bryant, who coordinated the scholarship effort for the second straight year. “We are proud to offer one of the least restrictive scholarships available, making it a realistic option for literally any college student to apply.”

Bryant indicated that the company has already set up the 2011 Foreclosure.com Scholarship Program, which will run for the entire year until Dec. 31, 2011 – nine months longer that the previous two programs.

Foreclosure.com has issued $18,000 in scholarship money to 10 college students nationwide since the program was introduced in 2009.

To read Kaitlyn’s winning essay, as well as the others from our four semifinalists, please visit the Foreclosure.com scholarship page (www.foreclosure.com/scholarship).

Boca Raton, Fla. — Jan. 20, 2011 — Foreclosure.com today announced that it recently added thousands of short sale properties for sale to its industry-leading, nationwide database of more than 2 million distressed real estate listings.

To search for potential short sale homes for sale in your area visit http://www.foreclosure.com/short_sale/ today.

What is a short sale property?

A short sale is a home that is for sale for less than the mortgage balance owed to the lender. It essentially short circuits the foreclosure process, allowing the distressed homeowner to sell a home that he or she can no longer afford at a price that is in-line with current market values.

And while the short sale process is often considered time-consuming, clunky and difficult, Foreclosure.com Vice President James Houston explains that the listings offered through the website are already bank-approved and ready to sell fast.

“The industry has come a long way in a relatively short amount of time in regard to short sales,” says Houston. “Banks and lenders have become increasingly more willing to set competitive sale prices even if it means doing so at a loss – the alternative (foreclosure) often costs them much more over time.”

Increased staffing, cutting-edge automation technology and government incentives, according to Houston, are the primary factors behind the latest increases in short sale closings. In fact, a recent report from the Palm Beach Post reveals that the short sale homes for sale in South Florida grew nearly 50 percent in 2010.

That’s a trend that Houston says will continue in Florida, and most likely across the board nationwide, as the short sale process continues to improve over time.

“Foreclosure.com only lists bank-approved short sales, meaning that we’ve eliminated the negotiation and other roadblocks that often derailed short sale deals in the past,” he said. “Banks need to sell these homes today, not tomorrow. So the prices often can’t be beat.”

Foreclosure.com already offers the most comprehensive, accurate and current collection of preforeclosure, foreclosed homes for rent-to-own, foreclosure, Sheriff sale, foreclosure auction, bank repossessed (bankruptcy), HUD homes and tax lien listings in one convenient location.

To search for potential short sale homes for sale in your area visit http://www.foreclosure.com/short_sale/ today.

Foreclosure.com today announced that it recently added thousands of foreclosed homes for rent-to-own properties to its industry-leading, nationwide database of more than 2 million distressed real estate listings.

To search for potential foreclosed homes for rent to own in your area visit http://www.foreclosure.com/rent_to_own today.

Foreclosure.com already offers the most comprehensive, accurate and current collection of preforeclosure, short sale, foreclosure, Sheriff sale, foreclosure auction, bank repossessed (bankruptcy), HUD homes and tax lien listings in one convenient location.

Adding foreclosed homes for rent-to-own properties, according to company Vice President James Houston, was a natural progression that reflects a shift in the ever-changing housing market.

“Buyers, who are predominantly watching their wallets closer than ever, as well as financial institutions, which have tightened their lending requirements significantly, are all super cautious right now,” said Houston. “Renting foreclosed homes with options to buy them at later dates is the best of both worlds: Buyers aren’t locked into long-term, expensive contracts and banks don’t have to worry about a glut of defaults.”

Houston adds that the renters of foreclosed homes also have time, which all depends based on the individual agreements, to “test drive” communities and neighborhoods, all the while putting dollars toward a potential purchase. It also helps revitalize foreclosure-ravaged homes, which can often drag down surrounding property values if left in states of disrepair.

“Foreclosed homes for rent is one of many bridges that will get the housing market on the road to correction sooner rather than later,” said Houston. “And, because our listings are bank-owned with options to buy, renters don’t have to worry about having their homes sold from underneath them.”

To search for potential foreclosed homes for rent to own in your area visit http://www.foreclosure.com/rent_to_own today.