The recession in the U.S. economy has resulted in more foreclosures than experienced by any other generation of Americans. But challenge always gives rise to opportunity, and opportunistic real estate investors are rising to the challenge.
The new opportunity is known as ‘Bulk REO Investing’ or ‘REO Package Investing’ and it’s a huge opportunity.
Let’s take a moment to analyze the basics of this incredibly lucrative business.
To understand investing in Bulk REO, you have to understand the foreclosure process.
When a home owner begins to miss payments on their mortgage, the lender begins to send late/overdue notices to the home owner. The formal process of foreclosure begins at the lender’s discretion. The name for this period is ‘preforeclosure’.
To complete the foreclosure process, the property is auction to the public. If there are no buyers at the foreclosure auction, the lender regains title to the property. Such a property is then classified as an ‘REO’ (Real Estate Owned) by the lender.
REO properties are usually listed for sale with local real estate agents. But more and more, lenders are selling their REO properties for a greatly reduced price. Lenders are willing to do so in exchange for the buyer’s agreement to purchase a ‘package’ of REO’s rather than a single property.
The REO investment packages available today have provided a way to profitably capitalize on the U.S. recession. The most successful Bulk REO Investors will have a well-respected source of funding for their transactions. Some sources of funding for these transactions are: personal funds, hard money lenders, commercial lenders and non-conventional sources such as private investors and hedge funds. Additionally, one man is becoming very well known in the field of bulk REO investing, and his name is Sal Buscemi of Dandrew Partners, a New-York based hedge fund.