There are more foreclosures in the United States right now than we have ever experienced before. However, opportunistic real estate investment professionals are turning the recession into great profits with a bit of creativity.
That opportunity is called Bulk REO Investing, and the opportunity is huge.
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.
As a home owner misses a payment or two, the lender sends the predictable barage of threatening letters and warnings. Following a period of time determined by the lender, formal foreclosure proceedings begin. The ‘pre-foreclosure’ time starts with filing of foreclosure paperwork and concludes at public auction.
Foreclosure is completed when the property is put up for auction. Ownership of the property is returned to the lender if the property is not sold at auction. The property then receives the designation of being an ‘REO’ or the more formal name, ‘Real Estate Owned’.
REO properties are usually listed for sale with local real estate agents. However, REO properties are now frequently sold for far less than their ‘book value’. But the price of receiving such great pricing is the need to purchase multiple REO properties (a ‘package’) rather than individual properties.
These REO packages represent the potential to acquire huge amounts of equity for savvy real estate investors. Bulk REO Investors are most successful when they have a well-established source of funding for their REO packages. 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 hedge fund in New York.
