With an estimated half a million foreclosures on the market at the end of 2007, one might wonder why they are not more aggressively advertised.  You would think that lenders would do everything they can to get rid of the properties as soon as possible as every day they keep a house on the books, it costs them money.  Banks are not in the business of owning homes; they are in the business of financing properties.

As of today (January 2, 2008), the nation's largest residential lender, Countrywide Home Loans shows only approximately 15,000 properties for sale on its REO site.

Wells Fargo shows even more; it show-casts approximately 18,500 for sale on its website.

The third largest residential lender in 2007, Washington Mutual does not even advertise its REOs on-line.

The forth largest residential lender in 2007, Bank of America, for some reason only shows 845 properties for sale on its REO site even though they must have a lot more in inventory. I wonder when the rest of these properties is going to hit the market.

To list some of the other major lenders, please check out http://myneighborhoodforeclosures.com/

One of the answers is that these large lenders simply do not have the staff and systems in place to deal with the huge volume of foreclosures that has hit the market in the recent 9-12 months.  Don't forget that this is a fairly recent phenomenon with foreclosure rates hitting all time lows as recent as mid-2006.  Once these lenders really start to realize the problems they are having, they will hopefully staff up and start to work more efficiently.