All About Bulk REO Investments
No generation in American history has ever experienced the number of foreclosures and defaulted mortgages as is happening now. But challenge always gives rise to opportunity, and opportunistic real estate investors are rising to the challenge.
The new opportunity is known as ‘Bulk REO Investing’ or ‘REO Package Investing’ and it’s a huge opportunity.
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.
Mortgage lenders faced with a non-paying home owner send a large volume of threats, warnings and documentation to the borrower who is late. The formal process of foreclosure begins at the lender’s discretion. Between the formal beginning of the foreclosure process and the public auction is the ‘preforeclosure’ period.
Foreclosure is completed when the defaulted property is auctioned. If there are no buyers at the foreclosure auction, the lender regains title to the property. The lender then categorizes the property as ‘Real Estate Owned’ – or ‘REO’ for short.
Typically, lenders list their REO properties with local real estate agents in hopes of selling the property to a retail buyer who will pay full price. Yet with increasing frequency, REO properties are being sold for pennies or dimes on the dollar. 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.
The REO investment packages available today have provided a way to profitably capitalize on the U.S. recession. 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.