What I am looking for is to put together an initial letter to him ( and his wife) that lays out (the easiest way) these deals are structured.

This is just a hunch, but i think they had a big board meeting when they were nearing there target reserve levels to initiate release and it went: "well boys n girls, we will have the reserves built next week to start dumping these reo's, but know what, our lobbiests rocked and got us all the money we could ever need, and I'm loving these reserve numbers, screw it, lets invest these reserves and make MORE, and just trickle those reo's out until values make it worth our while to dump em" "but sir, what if these decaying assets start costing us, in Michigan we have to tear them down?"

My initial reaction is that you are giving away profit centers you should be collecting on your own. 10% is not uncommon from what I have seen.

I know of some groups that specialize in these purchases if your group is looking to sell at some point.What was the intended exit strategy when the deal was initially purchased?

If you can't do that before you have to write an offer, make some assumption then add a contingency to allow you to verify that contingency.

I'm assuming that when you cold call a listing agent, they aren't going to give you the lockbox code, so you will be making your initial offer sight unseen.

Just curious- how did you verify this guy's identity as a "bank representative"?

The advice everyone else has given you is great, I'm not a buy and hold investor, so I'm not even going to pretend to give you advice on that subject, just wanted to share my initial thoughts on the situation:)

Question: will we have trouble selling to someone who intends on financing if the transaction is less than 90 days from my initial closing?

Dominic - I agree with the previous posters about checking your local law to verify that your able to do a MLO.