Calculator · Lender-Owned Real Estate

OREO carrying-cost calculator

Lender-owned real estate is a non-earning, classified asset. It bleeds non-interest expense — taxes, insurance, maintenance, management — while value erodes and capital sits trapped. This tool totals that drain, per year and over your hold.

Cost of holding

Cash carrying cost / year
Value erosion / year
Capital opportunity cost / year
All-in cost / year
Total over hold:

Estimates only, for illustration; not financial, legal, tax, or accounting advice.

Methodology

Holding OREO has three cost layers, all running against the institution every period:

  • Cash carrying cost — property taxes, insurance, maintenance/security/utilities, and management/legal, each expressed as a percent of value and charged to non-interest expense.
  • Value erosion — the expected annual decline in a non-stabilized, non-marketed asset, which also drives further write-downs to the lower of cost or fair value.
  • Capital opportunity cost — the return foregone on capital trapped in a non-earning, classified asset instead of redeployed into new lending.

All-in annual cost = value × (tax% + insurance% + maintenance% + management% + decline% + cost-of-capital%)

Multiplied by the hold period to total the drain. The figure is the recurring cost a cash sale eliminates immediately — separate from, and on top of, any discount to value.

Common questions
What does it cost a bank to hold OREO?

Direct carrying costs — taxes, insurance, maintenance/security, management, legal — hit non-interest expense each period; on commercial property these commonly run 8%–15% of value per year before any value decline, plus the opportunity cost of trapped, non-earning capital.

How does selling stop the drain?

A cash sale ends the carrying cost and write-down risk the day it closes, frees the capital and reserves to redeploy, and removes a classified asset from the books. Compare a sale against a continued hold with the loan-sale-vs-foreclosure calculator.

Who buys lender-owned real estate?

Standing Bid Capital is a direct, all-cash buyer of REO and CRE loans, $250K–$25M, nationwide. Request a confidential review.

© 2026 Standing Bid Capital · Direct principal buyer of commercial real-estate loans & REO.[email protected]