Bank-owned homes around Lincoln could see a future as rentals until the housing market turns around.

That’s according to Century 21 Select manager and broker Gene Thorpe, who said Friday that a top REO (real estate owned) agent in the area told him some banks are planning, for now, to rent out foreclosed homes in lieu of selling them.

This is a by-product of the housing boom mid-decade, according to Thorpe, since some former homeowners may not have been able to afford the homes they bought that were subsequently foreclosed.

Lynda Armes, a mortgage banker at Maidu Financial, said banks are selling foreclosed homes to hedge-fund groups, who then rent the homes to the owner who has been foreclosed on.

Armes said the hedge-fund groups get the homes “at discount.”

“Banks are bundling (mortgage-backed) securities and selling them to hege-funders in groups,” Armes said. “The hedge funders own the properties.”

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