The recession in the U.S. economy has resulted in more foreclosures than experienced by any other generation of Americans. But smart real estate investors are turning these ‘lemons’ into ‘lemonade’ in an incredibly profitable new way.
This new opportunity - known as ‘Bulk REO Investing’ - is so huge it’s captured attention from wealthy investors and private investment funds alike.
Consider with me, if you will, the fundamentals of the Bulk REO 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. The lender directs the subsequent timing of the actual foreclosure proceedings. From that time through public auction is called ‘preforeclosure’.
Foreclosure is completed when the defaulted property is auctioned. If there are no buyers for the property at auction, the property is returned to the 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. But as a consequence of the weak economy, lenders are frequently selling their REO properties far below their actual value. 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 Capital Partners, a New-York based hedge fund.