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 Bulk REO investing is 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. After a certain period, the lender will then formally begin foreclosure proceedings. ‘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 lender then categorizes the property as ‘Real Estate Owned’ – or ‘REO’ for short.
Lenders have no interest in owning property, and thus usually opt to list their REO properties with a local real estate broker in hopes of a retail sale. However, lenders are increasingly willing to take much less than their REO asset is actually worth. 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.
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. 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 Bushemi of Dandrew Capital Partners, a hedge fund in New York.
