Ryan Galiotto

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.

The new opportunity is known as ‘Bulk REO Investing’ or ‘REO Package Investing’ and it’s a huge opportunity.

Let’s take a moment to analyze the basics of this incredibly lucrative business.

You can’t understand Bulk REO Investments without understanding the process of foreclosure.

When a home owner begins to miss payments on their mortgage, the lender begins to send late/overdue notices to the home owner. Following a period of time determined by the lender, formal foreclosure proceedings begin. The ‘pre-foreclosure’ time starts with filing of foreclosure paperwork and concludes at public auction.

Foreclosure is completed when the property is put up for auction. The lender regains ownership of the property if there are no buyers at auction. 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. Yet with increasing frequency, REO properties are being sold for pennies or dimes on the dollar. This happens because the buyer of the REO is required to purchase multiple REO’s in a single transaction.

The recession in the United States has yielded huge profits to real estate investors prepared to take advantage. Bulk REO Investors are most successful when they have a well-established source of funding for their REO packages. 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. One excellent source of funding for Bulk REO Investment transactions can be found here: Bulk REO Investment Training.