REO’s three of the least liked letters for a bank, and institutions anxious to remove these mortgage barnacles from their hulls have a new spot on the web to locate buyers looking to bid for foreclosed properties. The N-Play REO service allows buyers to submit real time offers on bank and lender owned properties. An interactive interface displays all active offers for a foreclosed property and instantly ranks and displays any new or modified offer based on the seller’s criteria. Any offers agreed to online are memorialized in a memo of understanding, which is then handed off to respective agents to negotiate remaining points for execution of a purchase agreement.
In a statement, Todd Reilly, CEO of Viridian Asset Management, said this new marketplace changes the market for REO properties from finite group of buyers who are participating only for financial gain at the expense of banks to a much broader market of buyers who are better matched to the property. Mark Bloomfield, CEO of the Jacksonville, Fl-based N-Play LLC, says most bank sites include minimal information with REO listing, in most cases just the phone number of a listing agent. N-Play service places market participants into a more robust interactive environment that encourages higher prices because of the real-time competition among potential buyers.
And since REO is a larger piece of the today’s mortgage market, it’s a bigger part of banks’ strategy, and N-Play hopes that will attract a lot of participants to its new service. “At one time, REO was swept under the rug by banks,” Bloomfield says. “Now banks have this large inventory that’s become critical to the bank’s financial position, so they’re taking a better approach marketing the properties.”
