The weakness of the U.S. economy has given rise to the largest epidemic of foreclosures in American history. 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.
Foreclosures are at the heart of the Bulk REO business, so let’s consider the foreclosure process.
Understanding the notion of Bulk REO’s requires understanding of 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 lender directs the subsequent timing of the actual foreclosure proceedings. ‘Pre foreclosure’ is the name given to the time between implementation of the foreclosure proceedings and the public auction.
When a defaulted property is placed up for auction, the foreclosure process is completed. The lender regains ownership of the property if there are no buyers at auction. 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 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. 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 Bushemi of Dandrew Partners, a hedge fund in New York.