Short Sales News

There are more foreclosures in the United States right now than we have ever experienced before. But challenge always gives rise to opportunity, and opportunistic real estate investors are rising to the challenge.

The real estate investing strategy du jour is called ‘Bulk REO Investing‘ and is a real monster.

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. Following a period of time determined by the lender, formal foreclosure proceedings begin. ‘Pre foreclosure’ is the name given to the time between implementation of the foreclosure proceedings and the public auction.

Foreclosure is completed when the defaulted property is auctioned. If the property is not purchased at auction, ownership reverts to the original lender. The property then receives the designation of being an ‘REO’ or the more formal name, ‘Real Estate Owned’.

Lenders usually try to unload their REO properties at close to retail price by listing their REO’s with a real estate broker. But more and more, lenders are selling their REO properties for a greatly reduced price. This happens because the buyer of the REO is required to purchase multiple REO’s in a single transaction.

There is huge profit potential in these REO packages for qualified real estate investors. The most successful Bulk REO Investors will have a well-respected source of funding for their transactions. There are many sources of funding for these transasactions including: hard money and commercial financing, as well as non conventional sources such as hedge funds and private investors. Additionally, one man is becoming very well known in the field of bulk REO investing, and his name is Sal Buscemi of Dandrew Capital Partners, a hedge fund in New York.

Tags: bulk reo, bulk reo investing, buyer mandate, reo packages, seller mandate