they would not lose so much and they can always resell later

It may be worthwhile, but they have strict guidelines they must follow to keep certain ratios in balance and holding property is not in the allowed constraints. That is why you can make good deals when their repo to loan ratio gets in trouble like it is now for many banks. If they do not control it, they get shut down like so many are today.

It might be. There are a few problems they would have to address. They would have to figure out how to manage the rental properties. l am not certain banks have the wherewithal to attempt something of that nature currently. They might be able to hire a property management company to handle that aspect.

They r not in the real estate management business. l see no logic in going into a completely different & unrelated business field. They have trouble enough managing themselves.

l would also hope we have laws in place preventing lenders from foreclosing & holding property, not selling would keep the people who caused the foreclosure in the first place to remain in limbo indefinitely.

HUD can buy them & use them as low income housing. The city l live in is doing that. Buying 500k homes for half that & moving in the homeless. l am very glad l live in a neighborhood with foreclosures, & the ones that happen r sold within 2 days, with 30 or so offers.

they would lose more trying to collect rents, having to evict people and repairing damage those tenants caused. Much better to dump it for what cash they can get and have no liability

NO WAY !!

There are too many renters who will damage / destroy property and then skip out ...

By the time the banks paid someone to manage the rentals, do and verify the applications and show the properties etc .. repaired and replaced the damage ; they would end up in the hole ... on too many of them.

The best thing a bank can do is to sell the homes for as much as they can get and cut their losses ..