RealtyStore vs. Foreclosure.com Review: Which Site Has More Foreclosure Listings?

RealtyStore.com is a newer foreclosure search site which covers 140 cities across the US. I'm a real estate investor in the Los Angeles area and I frequently check foreclosure listings on a variety of sources, including Foreclosure.com. Since I pay over $39 per month for access to foreclosure.com's website, I wanted to see whether RealtyStore is as good or better, since the site is significantly less expensive at $12 per month (hey if you can get the same information for less, why not?). I signed up for a free trial and tested out RealtyStore and compared it against Foreclosure.com, and here's what I found.

Coverage and depth of listings

RealtyStore has good coverage in major metros like Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Miami, Dallas, and Minneapolis - but once you go into smaller cities the coverage gets thin. RealtyStore has around 500,000 listings, while Foreclosure.com has well over 1 million. So when it comes to coverage, Foreclosure.com is the clear winner over RealtyStore.

Listings detail

When it comes to revealing detailed information about each listing, RealtyStore provides more details. The site provides very detailed information of pricing, financial information on the outstanding loan and default, building structure details, and a wealth of photos. In contrast, Foreclosure.com provides less information and often you can't see photos of the listings.

Search features

If you like to search based on many different criteria such as number of bedrooms, type of default / sale, ranges of locations / areas, and detailed ranges of prices, then Foreclosure.com has by far the better features. If you only need to search by very basic features such as pre-set price ranges and zip code, RealtyStore's search tools do a fine job. RealtyStore's tools are just not that rich and cannot provide complex searches - so if you are a power searcher Foreclosure.com is the way to go.

Customer service

Both companies are responsive to customer requests. I did find that you could more easily get a person on the phone with Foreclosure.com - it oly took me a few minutes to jump through the system and get a real, friendly live person on the line (who seemed to be a native speaker). With RealtyStore, they try to handle most issues via email, and after playing around with the phone system for about 7-8 minutes you can get through to a live customer service agent, but this person is obviously not a native speaker and it was tough to get any real customer service through her (everything needed to be escalated).

Price

Price is where RealtyStore shines, at 1/3 the cost of Foreclosure.com. RealtyStore is only $12 per month, while Foreclosure.com is $39 per month. With Foreclosure.com's better coverage and search features, along with better customer service, in my opinion its worth the cost. However, if you are looking for just the basics and can live with basic search features, then RealtyStore is really not a bad choice at all.

More information

• Link to a one-week free trial subscription to Foreclosure.com
• Link to RealtyStore's limited 1-month free offer