'Wrapping' Up Diverse Real Estate Owned Assets.(Managing REO)

Byline: Lew Sichelman

New York-Here's an offbeat idea for REO specialists who need to protect their assets: Rather than pay a caretaker a monthly fee to watch over vacated houses and protect them from the elements, not to mention vandals and varmints, shrink wrap them instead.

Fast Wrap USA, a Reno, Nev.-based company specializing in shrink-wrapping everything from boats to buildings, hasn't done any foreclosed houses yet. But it has wrapped half-built houses, churches and small office buildings. So it's inevitable that it will.

After all, as founder and CEO Mike Enos says, "We're in the asset protection business."

And shrink wrap, he adds, can extend the life of what it surrounds "by two or three times."

Mr. Enos, who is something of a serial entrepreneur, got into the business innocently enough when he tried to get a company which wrapped new boats to wrap his air boat, which was too big to fit into his garage.

When his request was rejected, he contacted the maker of the wrap itself. He bought the materials and used the maker's heat gun to wrap the boat himself. From there, a business was born.