Stocks and mutual funds are on a roller coaster ride. Your savings account is returning pennies. Cap rates are getting lower every day and the Real Estate Owned (REO) inventory is decreasing while prices are increasing. One key reason to focus on buying notes in the present market is simply because there are so many of them out there following the nation’s most recent foreclosure crisis. Even though the housing market is recovering, there are still billions of dollars in bad assets on the books of banks and mortgage companies. In the past, banks would foreclosure on these notes and sell the property attached to the loan, but now banks are selling these notes without foreclosing. These accounts are a drain on the lender both monetarily and from a human resources standpoint. Lenders in need of cash liquidity are willing to sell their non-performing notes at a steep discount. This creates opportunities for the astute investor.