SECU makes lemonade out of lemons by rehabbing, renting, and selling foreclosures
Since 2012, the credit union’s CUSO has capitalized on loans gone sour to create quality affordable housing across the Tarheel State.
In the aftermath of the Great Recession, State Employees’ Credit Union($45.2B, Raleigh, NC) created a CUSO that uses the resources and ethos of the nation’s second-largest credit union to turn foreclosures into single-family rentals and owner-occupied homes.
The property management CUSO is named SECU*RE and its mission is to take SECU’s real estate owned (REO) properties, rehab them, and then rent or sell them. The result is less loss to the credit union itself and, just as critically, more affordable housing and less neighborhood decay in the communities in which those houses are located.
As of Jan. 1, SECU*RE owned 1,546 properties with a market value of $221 million. And as of July 1, it was managing 1,302 occupied rental units.
Here is more about the CUSO from Mark Kretzschmar, an 18-year employee at SECU who has been senior vice president of property management governance for nearly three years.
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