There are more foreclosures in the United States right now than we have ever experienced before. But smart real estate investors are turning these ‘lemons’ into ‘lemonade’ in an incredibly profitable new way.

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. From that time through public auction is called ‘preforeclosure’.

Foreclosure is completed when the property is put up for auction. 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.

Lenders usually try to unload their REO properties at close to retail price by listing their REO’s with a real estate broker. But more and more, lenders are selling their REO properties for a greatly reduced price. The trade-off is that the buyer must purchase multiple REO properties in each transaction.

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. 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 Salvatore Buscemi of Dandrew Capital Partners, a hedge fund in New York.