With more foreclosures now than ever before, America's weak real estate market seems to set new dismal records each month. However, opportunistic real estate investment professionals are turning the recession into great profits with a bit of creativity.
'Bulk REO Investing' is the name of the new strategy, and it's captured the attention of many well-heeled investors.
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. The name for this period is 'preforeclosure'.
Foreclosure is completed when the property is put up for auction. If there are no buyers for the property at auction, the property is returned to the lender. Such a property is then classified as an 'REO' (Real Estate Owned) by the lender.
Local real estate agents are usually used to resale REO properties at retail price to the general public. Yet with increasing frequency, REO properties are being sold for pennies or dimes on the dollar. But the price of receiving such great pricing is the need to purchase multiple REO properties (a 'package') rather than individual properties.
Qualified real estate investors are increasingly finding once-in-a-lifetime opportunities in these REO packages. 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.
