Guide To Bulk REO Investments
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.
Take a just a minute to consider the basics of this highly profitable 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. The formal process of foreclosure begins at the lender’s discretion. The ‘pre-foreclosure’ time starts with filing of foreclosure paperwork and concludes at 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. This property is then considered to be ‘Real Estate Owned’ by the lender, also known as an ‘REO’ property.
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. But more and more, lenders are selling their REO properties for a greatly reduced price. But the price of receiving such great pricing is the need to purchase multiple REO properties (a ‘package’) rather than individual properties.
The recession in the United States has yielded huge profits to real estate investors prepared to take advantage. REO packages are easiest to buy and sell with a well regarded source of financing in place. 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 hedge fund in New York.
