Guide To Being A Bulk REO Investor
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.
This new opportunity - known as ‘Bulk REO Investing’ - is so huge it’s captured attention from wealthy investors and private investment funds alike.
Let’s take a moment to analyze the basics of this incredibly lucrative business.
Understanding of the foreclosure process is central to understanding Bulk REO investing.
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 lender directs the subsequent timing of the actual foreclosure proceedings. From that time through public auction is called ‘preforeclosure’.
When a defaulted property is placed up for auction, the foreclosure process is completed. Ownership of the property is returned to the lender if the property is not sold at auction. 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.
There is huge profit potential in these REO packages for qualified real estate investors. The most successful Bulk REO Investors will have a well-respected source of funding for their transactions. 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 Partners, a New-York based hedge fund.
