Redwood Real Estate Fund Goes After REOs

""Redwood Real Estate Partners, Inc."":http://www.redwoodre.com, a real estate investment company based in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, announced on Wednesday that it has launched a new investment fund with the goal of acquiring $500 million in distressed residential real estate assets.
The company explained that its new Occasio Distressed Residential Fund - or Occasio ResCap - aims to leverage current depressed market conditions and the continuing surge in bank-owned properties, while offering lenders a ""seamless"" avenue of liquidating their REO inventories.
As an institutional operating platform, Occasio ResCap will manage the acquisition and handle the risk analysis, pricing, underwriting, and liquidation of distressed assets. Because it is a fully funded entity that is sponsored by Redwood, the company said, Occasio ResCap has the capital to close sales and mitigate sellers' risk.
Carl Chang, founder and CEO of Redwood Real Estate Partners, said, ""We are in the midst of a very challenging market and recognize that liquidity is scarce. We launched Occasio ResCap to provide an effective exit strategy to sellers of residential real estate assets looking for liquidity.""
In an interview with _""Reuters"":http://www.reuters.com/article/gc03/idUSTRE54J2VV20090520_, Chang explained that the new fund will focus on bulk sales of REOs, currently selling at 60 cents to 85 cents on the dollar - conditions that he called ""large buying opportunities."" According to Chang, Redwood's recent $44 million investment in bank owned properties saw returns of up to 35 percent.
Occasio ResCap will be led by John Duden, one of the founding partners of Fasthold Capital, which specialized in the acquisition, restructuring, and liquidation of residential whole loans and REO portfolios.
Duden commented, ""With our mutual aptitude and experience plus an established fund, sellers of distressed real estate assets can look forward to a quick, transparent transaction and the confidence of knowing the sale of their assets will be executed flawlessly.""
""Redwood Real Estate Partners"":http://www.redwoodre.com was founded in 1989 and is privately-owned by the Chang Family. The company's expertise involve commercial development, redevelopment, value-add and distressed asset and debt opportunities. Redwood says these capabilities and its management team's years of experience mean the firm is ""well positioned to capitalize on the dislocations and inefficiencies that are inherent in real estate investing.""