No generation in American history has ever experienced the number of foreclosures and defaulted mortgages as is happening now. Yet well-funded investors in real estate are seizing upon this opening to profit from an profoundly profitable new opportunity.
That opportunity is called Bulk REO Investing, and the opportunity is huge.
Foreclosures are at the heart of the Bulk REO business, so let’s consider the foreclosure process.
To understand investing in Bulk REO, you have to understand the foreclosure process.
A home owner who misses one or more mortgage payments is faced with an ever-increasing volume of threatening correspondence from their lender. The formal process of foreclosure begins at the lender’s discretion. ‘Pre foreclosure’ is the name given to the time between implementation of the foreclosure proceedings and the public auction.
To complete the foreclosure process, the property is auction to the public. If the property is not purchased at auction, ownership reverts to the original lender. The designation of ‘REO’ (Real Estate Owned) is then attached to the foreclosed property.
Typically, lenders list their REO properties with local real estate agents in hopes of selling the property to a retail buyer who will pay full price. But as a consequence of the weak economy, lenders are frequently selling their REO properties far below their actual value. But the price of receiving such great pricing is the need to purchase multiple REO properties (a ‘package’) rather than individual properties.
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 Salvatore Buscemi of Dandrew Partners, a New-York based hedge fund.