No generation in American history has ever experienced the number of foreclosures and defaulted mortgages as is happening now. 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.

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

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. Following a period of time determined by the lender, formal foreclosure proceedings begin. The name for this period is ‘preforeclosure’.

To complete the foreclosure process, the property is auction to the public. Ownership of the property is returned to the lender if the property is not sold at auction. This property is then considered to be ‘Real Estate Owned’ by the lender, also known as an ‘REO’ property.

Typically, lenders list their REO properties with local real estate agents in hopes of selling the property to a retail buyer who will pay full price. Yet with increasing frequency, REO properties are being sold for pennies or dimes on the dollar. However, the purchase of a ‘package’ (or group) or REO properties is the trade-off for receiving such great prices.

There is huge profit potential in these REO packages for qualified real estate investors. The most successful Bulk REO Investors will have a well-respected source of funding for their transactions. 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 Partners, a hedge fund in New York.