How To Get Started As A Bulk REO Investor
There are more foreclosures in the United States right now than we have ever experienced before. However, opportunistic real estate investment professionals are turning the recession into great profits with a bit of creativity.
‘Bulk REO Investing’ is the name of the new strategy, and it’s captured the attention of many well-heeled investors.
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.
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. ‘Pre foreclosure’ is the name given to the time between implementation of the foreclosure proceedings and the public auction.
To complete the foreclosure process, the property is auction to the public. If there are no buyers at the foreclosure auction, the lender regains title to the property. The designation of ‘REO’ (Real Estate Owned) is then attached to the foreclosed property.
Lenders usually try to unload their REO properties at close to retail price by listing their REO’s with a real estate broker. 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.
Qualified real estate investors are increasingly finding once-in-a-lifetime opportunities in these REO packages. 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 Partners, a New-York based hedge fund.
