With more foreclosures now than ever before, America’s weak real estate market seems to set new dismal records each month. But challenge always gives rise to opportunity, and opportunistic real estate investors are rising to the challenge.

The new opportunity is known as ‘Bulk REO Investing’ or ‘REO Package Investing’ and it’s a huge opportunity.

Take a just a minute to consider the basics of this highly profitable business.

Understanding the notion of Bulk REO’s requires understanding of the foreclosure process.

As a borrower becomes increasingly behind in his mortgage, the lender regularly calls and writes the borrower with default warnings and threats. The lender directs the subsequent timing of the actual foreclosure proceedings. The ‘pre-foreclosure’ time starts with filing of foreclosure paperwork and concludes at public auction.

The defaulted property is ultimately auctioned, thus completing the foreclosure process. If there are no buyers at the foreclosure auction, the lender regains title to the property. This property is then considered to be ‘Real Estate Owned’ by the lender, also known as an ‘REO’ property.

Lenders usually try to unload their REO properties at close to retail price by listing their REO’s with a real estate broker. Yet with increasing frequency, REO properties are being sold for pennies or dimes on the dollar. But the price of receiving such great pricing is the need to purchase multiple REO properties (a ‘package’) rather than individual properties.

These REO packages represent the potential to acquire huge amounts of equity for savvy real estate investors. Bulk REO Investors are most successful when they have a well-established source of funding for their REO packages. 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 Bushemi of Dandrew Capital Partners, a New-York based hedge fund.