There are more foreclosures in the United States right now than we have ever experienced before. Yet well-funded investors in real estate are seizing upon this opening to profit from an profoundly profitable new opportunity.

That opportunity is called Bulk REO Investing, and the opportunity is huge.

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

To understand Bulk REO investing is 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. The formal process of foreclosure begins at the lender’s discretion. Between the formal beginning of the foreclosure process and the public auction is the ‘preforeclosure’ period.

When a defaulted property is placed up for auction, the foreclosure process is completed. If there are no buyers for the property at auction, the property is returned to the lender. The property then receives the designation of being an ‘REO’ or the more formal name, ‘Real Estate Owned’.

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. However, lenders are increasingly willing to take much less than their REO asset is actually worth. However, the purchase of a ‘package’ (or group) or REO properties is the trade-off for receiving such great prices.

The recession in the United States has yielded huge profits to real estate investors prepared to take advantage. 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 hedge fund in New York.