How To Get Started With 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.

‘Bulk REO Investing’ is the name of the new strategy, and it’s captured the attention of many well-heeled investors.

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.

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. The name for this period is ‘preforeclosure’.

Foreclosure is completed when the defaulted property is auctioned. If the property is not purchased at auction, ownership reverts to the original 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. However, lenders are increasingly willing to take much less than their REO asset is actually worth. The trade-off is that the buyer must purchase multiple REO properties in each transaction.

These REO packages represent the potential to acquire huge amounts of equity for savvy real estate investors. REO packages are easiest to buy and sell with a well regarded source of financing in place. 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 Salvatore Bushemi of Dandrew Partners, a New-York based hedge fund.