Experts Say REO Can Be an Affordable Housing Resource.

SAN DIEGO -- Some housing experts are trying to make the best out of a bad situation using rising foreclosures due to a weaker housing market to generate affordable housing opportunities for first-time low-income minority buyers.

The new market trend appears to get momentum as time goes by.

Gary Acosta, the founder of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals, has teamed up with Jim Park, Asian Real Estate Association of America president and CEO, in establishing the first-of-its-kind minority-owned national REO management and marketing company, New Vista Asset Management.

Its mission, according to Mr. Park, is "to turn a bad situation into a positive one by using REO properties to create more affordable housing opportunities for minority homebuyers and other underserved populations."

The strategy, the executives say, is to leverage their "broad connections within the minority real estate practitioner community the nonprofit housing and counseling network, and interested mortgage lenders to create an accessible source of housing and suitable loan products for first-time homebuyers in underserved communities.

In light of data showing "minorities have shouldered the burnt of the losses in the subprime mortgage market meltdown with significant numbers of the higher cost loans to blacks and Hispanics expected to end up in foreclosure," according to New Vista, this effort is very timely.

If investors have in the past and will play an important part in bringing capital to minority neighborhoods, Mr. Park said, "We must work these communities to turn foreclosures back into the hands of families with deep roots there."