With more foreclosures now than ever before, America’s weak real estate market seems to set new dismal records each month. Yet as always, this challenge has given rise to a huge new opportunity for alert real estate investors.

This new opportunity – known as ‘Bulk REO Investing’ – is so huge it’s captured attention from wealthy investors and private investment funds alike.

Foreclosures are at the heart of the Bulk REO business, so let’s consider the foreclosure process.

To understand Bulk REO investing is 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. After a certain period, the lender will then formally begin foreclosure proceedings. The name for this period is ‘preforeclosure’.

Foreclosure is completed when the defaulted property is auctioned. If there are no buyers at the foreclosure auction, the lender regains title to the property. The lender then categorizes the property as ‘Real Estate Owned’ – or ‘REO’ for short.

REO properties are usually listed for sale with local real estate agents. 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. 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 New-York based hedge fund.