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.

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 official foreclosure proceedings begin subsequently, as directed by the lender. 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. 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. However, REO properties are now frequently sold for far less than their ‘book value’. This happens because the buyer of the REO is required to purchase multiple REO’s in a single 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. 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 Salvatore Buscemi of Dandrew Capital Partners, a hedge fund in New York.