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When I first started my real estate training company in October of 2008, we were in the middle of the Global Financial Crisis. I literally opened up my real estate education company right after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, on September 15, 2008, which was the climax of the subprime mortgage crisis.
I called my company “The Distressed Real Estate Institute“. The goal was to teach people how to buy distressed real estate. At the time, while everyone was focusing on the aftermath of the collapse, I was focusing on the opportunity to buy bank owned properties for pennies on the dollar.
I held my first real estate training event on Jan 11, 2009. It was called the “Distressed Real Estate Workshop“. It was my first public speaking event and I don’t know how, but I somehow managed through sheer hustle and determination to get 142 people into a room to hear me speak.
By May of 2009 I held my first ever “Distressed Real Estate Boot Camp and Bus Trip” where I was teaching people how to buy REOs directly from banks. I was taking them on bus trips to see bank owned properties. My first boot camp was small (around 25 people), but I saw that there was huge demand from new students who wanted to learn and understand how bank owned properties worked, and how to buy them, bid on them and flip them.
By the spring of 2009, banks and title companies made “dry closings” illegal. This is the practice where a wholesaler used the end-buyer’s cash to fund their initial purchase for a double closing. We were one of the first companies in the U.S to teach our students about transactional funding, double closing, and how to fund their deals.
We were also one of the first companies to start using proof of funds letters with our students. Our title company Independence Title was instrumental in helping us navigate these unchartered waters.
I listed to my students when they told me “Lex this information that you are teaching is great but if I don’t have the cash to pay for the property and If I don’t have investors to flip the property to then what do I do?”
This is how the concept of the “Partnership Program was born.
I was teaching my students how to wholesale and flip these bank owned properties. Quite a few of that first round of students are now full time wholesalers (and real estate coaches) who generate millions of dollars a year wholesaling.
We were heavily focused on short sales, foreclosures, pre-foreclosures and bank-owned properties. There was no need in 2009 to do direct mail, pay per click, cold call or any of the things we see investors doing today. Why? Because there were were literally too many bank owned homes. There were thousands of bank owned properties and short sales listed on the MLS. And the crazy part is that almost no one was interested in bidding on them.
I wrote a book called Wholesaling Bank Owned Properties, which outlined the concept of wholesaling and flipping bank owned properties, foreclosures and short sales. You can click on the link above to get a free copy.
That environment during the prior financial crisis in the years 2008 and 2009 played a major role in how my real estate education company got started and how I began to teach new real estate investors. Since then, over the past 18 years I have trained over 7,500 students and have personally been involved in thousands of real estate transactions.
I believe that understanding bank-owned properties, foreclosures and distressed real estate is becoming increasingly important again because we are heading into a very similar situation again in 2026. I built my real estate training business during one of the most distressed housing markets in modern history, and I learned firsthand how to find opportunity when the market changes.
That experience is especially relevant today. In 2026, foreclosure activity is increasing again, banks are taking back more properties, and distressed real estate is beginning to create opportunities that many newer investors have never experienced before. The market is shifting. And as a new investor (or a seasoned investor) you need to learn how to shift too.
I’ve seen this type of market before. I built my business in a market like this, invested through it, and spent years teaching other investors how to understand and capitalize on markets like this. That is exactly why I believe now is the time for investors to understand how foreclosures, short sales and bank-owned properties really work.
Because the opportunity is already at our door step. The opportunity is NOW.
I look at the MLS every single day.
I study inventory and pricing.
Is inventory increasing or decreasing?
Are prices increasing or decreasing?
I’m seeing more and more short sales.
I’m seeing more foreclosures and pre-foreclosures. Each time I download my list the numbers are higher.
And I’m seeing more people experiencing economic pressure.
I see this everywhere. Restaurants are closing down, businesses are closing down. Every single day.
That is why I believe investors need to understand how to invest in a down market like the one we are in right now – and the way to do that is by focusing on bank owned properties, foreclosures, pre-foreclosures and short sales. That is where the money is. And my goal is to teach you how to make as much money as possible from this opportunity.
During the previous housing downturn, there were homes in Port St. Lucie that had previously been worth approximately $200,000 in 2006 that by 2009 were listed as bank owned properties on the MLS for $50,000.
Yes – listed at 25% of their prior value just three years earlier.
I purchased nine houses in one month in May 2009 for approximately $35,000 to $37,000 per house.
Today, those houses are worth approximately $350,000.
What was interesting back then was that when those houses had previously been selling for over $200,000, there was a frenzy, people were buying them like crazy. Everyone thought that real estate was the best investment ever.
I had a friend who was an architect at a company making over $250,000 a year who wanted to quit his profession to focus on buying and flipping houses. That was the peak. That is when everyone bought.
Right at the top of the market when prices were highest.
More recently we had a top in July of 2022. And just like last time, this was the most houses ever purchased (right at the top) which is proof positive that history is repeating itself and why I believe we are headed down.
In the financial crisis of 2008, when banks were giving houses away at 25% of their prior value, when they were available for $40,000 or $50,000, people were afraid to buy. Why is that?
That’s human psychology. There have been many books written on this subject.
People are often eager to buy when prices are rising because they think they will keep rising. And people are afraid to buy when prices are falling because they think they will continue falling.
Ask yourself this question. Which of these two markets are we in right now? The rising prices market or the falling prices market?
Because understanding this is how opportunities for you as an investor can be created.
I’ve been investing in real estate for more than two decades. I’ve personally purchased and flipped over 1,500 single-family homes, and collectively my students and I have been involved in thousands more.
I teach what I actually do. I teach you exactly the way that I do.
At my real estate training events, I keep two things on my table at the front of the room. You can see these in many photos from my events. What are they?
A stack of cash and a Rubik’s Cube.
The cash represents understanding money, financing, private lenders and what I call the “velocity of money”.
The Rubik’s Cube represents everything else—all of the different pieces you need to understand in order to put the concept of investing in distressed real estate together. There are 54 squares on a Rubik’s cube. It’s a puzzle and you have to put it together. Buying real estate at 50 cents on the dollar is no different.
For a new investor, one of the hardest parts is simply not knowing what you are looking for. You operate with vague terms like “I am looking for a house to flip”, or “let me know if you see any good deals”. This is newbie talk.
New students may say:
“Lex, I want to buy a bank-owned property.”
My first question is:
Where?
What neighborhood?
What ZIP code?
What price range?
What kind of property?
Are you buying rentals?
Are you fixing and flipping?
Are you looking for an Airbnb?
Suddenly, something that sounded simple has a lot more components.
You need to understand things like:
Your target market
Comparable sales
After Repair Value (ARV)
Repair estimates
Maximum Offer Price
Financing and private lenders
Foreclosures and pre-foreclosures
Short sales listed on the MLS
Bank-owned homes
Online auction sites
Exit strategies (renting or selling)
Each one is another piece of the Rubik’s Cube.
A Rubik’s Cube has 54 pieces.
The list above contains only 11. But if you dig deeper, you will see that each one has many layers to it.
For example, the first one—your target market—is directly related to your goal and your vision.
If your goal is to own 10 free-and-clear Section 8 rentals, then what you are looking for is completely different from another investor whose goal is to fix and flip houses or buy Airbnb’s. You are looking in different target markets for different types of houses.
So, you first have to clearly identify and establish your goal, and that goal is related to your vision.
Once you have established that—which is often the hardest part—you have to drill down deeper and learn your target market. That means understanding ZIP codes and their boundaries, subdivisions, and the different neighborhoods within your target market.
These are all pieces of the puzzle. Just like a Rubik’s Cube, they have to come together. You have to solve the puzzle.
Then you need to understand pricing.
What are investors paying to buy houses in this neighborhood? How much are they spending to fix them up? What are they selling them for? Who are these investors? What price per square foot are they paying? Who are the private lenders funding their purchases? Which crews are they using to fix up their properties? What are they selling those properties for? What is the dollar value, and how much is that per square foot?
In other words, you need to dig deeper and understand these things for all the pieces of the puzzle to work together.
In my training I call this concept “drilling down”.
Once you understand how those pieces all fit together, real estate investing and buying a house for 50 cents on the dollar starts to make a lot more sense.
And that all circles back to foreclosures and bank owned properties. You need to understand how the foreclosure process works, and how a pre-foreclosure turns into a foreclosure which turns into a foreclosure auction and ultimately a bank owned property.
This is how the pieces of the puzzle fit together.
If you want to invest in distressed real estate, if you want to buy houses for 50 cents on the dollar, you will need to understand how a property actually becomes bank-owned. There is a process that is made up of four stages.
There are four primary stages to foreclosure:
The homeowner begins missing mortgage payments. They are anywhere from 30 days late to 120 days late.
This can create an opportunity for an investor to contact the homeowner and potentially purchase the property before the foreclosure progresses further. You can purchase lists of homeowners that are more than 60 days late on their mortgage and you can market to them.
Once the foreclosure process begins, the homeowner may attempt to work with the lender (or more likely the lender will attempt to work with the homeowner). They can pursue a loan modification to attempt to reduce the interest rate, or the monthly payment, or add the balance owed to the bank at the back end of the loan.
The borrower may also consult with a foreclosure attorney who may recommend foreclosure defense strategies like challenging the validity of the mortgage, or the foreclosure defense attorney may handle the loss mitigation negotiations with the lender. The foreclosure defense attorney may recommend filing bankruptcy to buy more time.
Often the homeowner will attempt sell the property before the foreclosure auction by listing it on the MLS or by listing their house “For Sale By Owner” on Zillow (which is free).
In Florida, which is a judicial foreclosure state, the legal process where the bank sues the homeowner is called a Lis Pendens. Lis Pendens is Latin for ” lawsuit pending,” which serves as an official public notice filed in county records. This means that anyone can know if you are “in foreclosure”. It also means that investors can get lists of people that are “in foreclosure” and can market to them by mailing postcards, calling them etc.
One the bank has filed the Lis Pendens, this clouds the title to the property, which notifies everyone that there is a lawsuit pending and prohibits the owner from selling the property since this will show up on the title commitment that any title company attempting to sell the property will see.
If the foreclosure isn’t resolved, the property can eventually reach the foreclosure auction where the property is sold off at auction to the highest bidder. This used to be at the court house. When I first started working with my mentor Ben we used to go to the court house in West Palm Beach.
Today, the process is all online.
Investors need to understand title searches, liens and the risks associated with purchasing at the auction because you may buy a property that has liens attached to the property. Some of these liens could be a huge issue (like IRS).
This is why I do NOT recommend to my students that they buy properties at the foreclosure auction.
Rather wait until the property goes back to the bank and is an REO. Investor can and buy at the court house.
But I don’t recommend that you do unless you really know what you are doing.
If an investor does not purchase the property at the foreclosure auction, the lender can end up taking the property back.
It then becomes an REO, which stands for Real Estate Owned by the bank.
In other words, it becomes a bank-owned property.
And that’s where things become especially interesting for investors like you.
Banks are not in the business of owning houses.
They aren’t landlords.
They aren’t fix-and-flip investors.
They’re in the business of lending money.
Once they take a property back, they generally want to sell it as soon as possible.
The property may be listed on the MLS or placed on an online auction platform.
Some bank-owned properties appear on websites like Hubzu.com and Auction.com
But as an investor you need to understand that the opening bid isn’t necessarily the price the bank will accept.
They have a reserve price (it works just like eBay).
A house might show an opening bid of $45,000 on an auction platform. It may also be listed on the MLS.
That doesn’t necessarily mean you can buy it for $45,000.
The bank could have a reserve price of $119,000.
That is why you need to understand the process and how it works.
This is what I teach at my Bank Owned Properties Boot Camp
You need to know the After Repair Value (ARV) or what you could sell the house for after you have fixed it up.
You need to understand repairs and how much it would cost to repair the house.
This means understanding both material costs and labor costs.
I teach this at the Home Depot Bus Trip at the Fixing and Flipping Houses Boot Camp.
You need to know your Maximum Offer Price. The most you are willing to pay to buy the property.
And you need to understand how the particular auction platform works.
Each one works differently. Some allow you to bid AND to get a real estate commission.
Again, it all comes back to putting the pieces of the Rubik’s Cube together.
Whether your goal is to wholesale properties, fix and flip them, keep them as rentals, or turn them into Airbnb’s, you first need to be able to find the deal. That’s the hard part. After knowing what you are looking for the next obstacle is finding it.
One of the most important lessons my mentor taught me was:
Buy from people who have to sell, NOT people who want to sell.
There is a huge difference.
A motivated seller may be in foreclosure.
They may have lost their job.
They may be overwhelmed with credit card debt or medical bills.
There may have been a death, disability, divorce, fire, flood or hurricane.
The important distinction is that they’re dealing with a situation that creates a genuine need to sell.
They are facing financial difficulty because of life circumstances.
Bad things happen to good people. They are what we call “motivated sellers”.
They have to sell. This is very different to someone who wants to sell.
Those are the situations real estate investors need to learn how to identify.
You need to know how to identify this on your first phone call with the seller.
We teach these scripts to our students and we practice them and we role play.
You need to understand the four pillars which are Price, Motivation, Timeline and Condition.
This is exactly what I will be teaching at my upcoming Foreclosures & Bank-Owned Properties Boot Camp.
Friday, September 25 through Sunday, September 27
The location is Deerfield Beach, Florida (20 min from Fort Lauderdale airport)
Only a few seats remain for the boot camp on Friday September 25–to Sunday September 27.
We are almost sold out. If you want to be there, if there is still a seat available grab it at the link below.
Register and grab your seat before we are sold out:
www.BankOwnedPropertiesBootCamp.com
Or you can call our office at (561) 948-2127
At the Boot Camp, I’ll be teaching how the foreclosure and REO process works.
Including how to find and analyze:
Bank-owned properties
HUD homes
Fannie Mae properties
Freddie Mac properties
Short sales listed on the MLS
Foreclosures and Pre-foreclosures
How To Bid on Online auction sites
I’ll also show you how I analyze these properties, estimate their value, calculate offers and how to submit offers to the bank that will get accepted. You cannot have any contingencies in your contract. Your offer needs to be all cash with no inspection period and no contingencies. You also want to be submitting your offer directly to the listing agent.
For investors who want to experience my real estate training before committing to my complete Real Estate Training Program (which is $7,500), I make a very limited number of $997 Preview Tickets available before each Boot Camp.
We typically limit these to just three Preview Tickets per Boot Camp.
The $997 Preview Ticket allows new potential students to attend with their spouse, significant other, or business partner in order to “preview” my real estate training program. Our sales people offer “preview” tickets to new potential students who are interested in joining our real estate training program.
You can call our office and see if we have any more preview seats available to attend the entire three-day Bank-Owned Properties Boot Camp with me next weekend.
If there are still seats available you will be able to spend Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the boot camp with me as I personally teach you the strategies, systems, and techniques we use for finding and buying foreclosures, short sales, and bank-owned properties.
We call it a “preview” ticket because you don’t get access to any of our training materials. You only get access to the boot camp. But it allows you preview our program before committing to $7,500 to the complete real estate training program upfront. I feel like it’s fair. You want to see what it’s about before you commit.
So we let you attend the entire three-day Boot Camp for just $997—and you can bring your spouse or significant other with you at no additional charge.
Think of it as a three-day preview of my complete real estate training program. While you learn about buying and bidding on pre-foreclosures, foreclosures, short sales and bank owned properties and online auction sites.
You get to experience the training, meet me and my team, see exactly how I teach, ask questions, and decide for yourself whether my complete real estate training program is the right fit for you.
I may even offer you a deal on the price of my entire training program at the boot camp!
I only teach at eight Boot Camps per year, and only a few Preview Tickets are made available for each boot camp.
So if you have been thinking about learning how to invest in real estate, but you are not ready to commit to the complete $7,500 real estate training program, then you can grab this opportunity to experience the training firsthand for just $997.
There are only a few seats left for this boot camp and we are almost at capacity.
Most of the tickets for my boot camps are already accounted for by my coaching students that are in my training program.
more than 80% of our boot camp attendees are already in our training program.
So we have very limited seats for new students.
Real estate markets change.
Opportunities change.
But the principles remain the same:
Learn how to identify motivated sellers.
Find people who have to sell.
Understand what the property is really worth.
Know your comps and your numbers and how much to offer.
Have the private lenders available when the right deal appears.
That is how you put the pieces of the real estate investing Rubik’s Cube together.
There are going to be many opportunities to make millions of dollars.
We are actively buying now. There are opportunities everywhere. And it’s going to get better and better.
Right now we are buying houses at 50 cents on the dollar or less!
Just this past week two students purchased properties at less than 50 percent of ARV.
I made millions of dollars during the last foreclosure crisis, and so did many of my students.
We will make millions of dollars in this next financial crisis too. It is happening NOW.
The question is will you be there with us making money too?
If you want to learn how to buy Bank-Owned Properties, Foreclosures and Short Sales, come spend three days with me and learn how the process works at the Bank Owned Properties Boot Camp.
The Foreclosures & Bank-Owned Properties Boot Camp takes place:
Friday, September 25 through Sunday, September 27
Deerfield Beach, Florida (20 minutes from Fort Lauderdale Airport)
Only a few seats remain for September 25–27.
We are almost sold out.
Register and grab your seat before we are sold out (if there are still seats available at the link below).
www.BankOwnedPropertiesBootCamp.com
Or call my office on Tuesday at (561) 948-2127 to see if there are any seats left (we are closed Monday).
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