No generation in American history has ever experienced the number of foreclosures and defaulted mortgages as is happening now. Yet as always, this challenge has given rise to a huge new opportunity for alert real estate investors.

The real estate investing strategy du jour is called ‘Bulk REO Investing‘ and is a real monster.

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

Foreclosure is completed when the defaulted property is auctioned. 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. 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 REO investment packages available today have provided a way to profitably capitalize on the U.S. recession. One of the best ways to take advantage of Bulk REO Investing opportunities is to partner with a well-regarded source of funding. 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 Bushemi of Dandrew Partners, a hedge fund in New York.