There are more foreclosures in the United States right now than we have ever experienced before. 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.

The basis of the Bulk REO business is foreclosures, so let’s analyze the foreclosure process now.

To understand investing in Bulk REO, you have 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. After a certain period, the lender will then formally begin foreclosure proceedings. ‘Pre foreclosure’ is the name given to the time between implementation of the foreclosure proceedings and the public auction.

To complete the foreclosure process, the property is auction to the public. If there are no buyers for the property at auction, the property is returned to the lender. The lender then categorizes the property as ‘Real Estate Owned’ - or ‘REO’ for short.

Local real estate agents are usually used to resale REO properties at retail price to the general public. However, lenders are increasingly willing to take much less than their REO asset is actually worth. This happens because the buyer of the REO is required to purchase multiple REO’s in a single transaction.

There is huge profit potential in these REO packages for qualified real estate investors. Bulk REO Investors are most successful when they have a well-established source of funding for their REO packages. 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 Bushemi of Dandrew Capital Partners, a New-York based hedge fund.