Salvatore Buschemi of Dandrew Capital Partners discusses his hedge fund’s involvement in the distressed assets business.

Bulk REO Investing is proving to be one of the most profitable fields of investment during 2009 and beyond. Bulk REO Investors profit by purchasing groups (commonly called “REO portfolios”) of properties from lenders who have repossessed the properties and have urgent need to release pressure from their balance sheets. Due to the urgency of the balance sheet needs of the financial institutions coupled with the investor’s ability to buy a package of REO properties rather than individual properties, it’s frequently possible for a well-capitalized bulk reo investor to acquire REO packages at extremely attractive prices.

To get the full details, I chatted with Salvatore Buscemi of New York-based distressed asset hedge fund Dandrew Capital Partners.

“Dandrew Capital works by making offers to financial institutions on the basis of a percentage of unpaid principal balance. This means that if we make an offer of 60 cents on the dollar for a package of mortgages with a remainder of $3,000,000 in principal balance, then we’ll pay $1,800,000 to acquire that package” says Buscemi.

There are probably few people who are better positioned for the present economic downturn than Salvatore Buscemi and Dandrew Capital Partners. “Several years ago, everyone in the financial world thought that there would be no end to the booming real estate market. That made it very challenging for us, since we began marketing our distressed real estate asset fund before the real estate market began to fall apart.”

But Buscemi is obviously on the right side of the market trends. “Clearly, our strategy has been vindicated. Our fund is fully subscribed and we have plans for starting another fund exclusively for foreign investors.

What is particularly interesting about the way Dandrew Capital monetizes their property investments. “At the conclusion of our reo portfolio transactions, we own multiple properties which must then be monetized to bring a return to our fund. To do this, we resell our properties to retail home buyers via seller financing. By cutting traditional lenders out of our transactions, we are able to sell our properties quickly and at very attractive terms” says Buscemi.

The future seems quite bright for astute Bulk REO investors.

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