There is a blog that has been charting the growth in the number of listings at: countrywide-foreclosures.blogspot.com
If they file for bankruptcy, a court would technically be supervising operations and ensuring that assets are preserved, or at least disposed of in a manner that most benefits the creditors. I suspect that would mean the continued one at a time market price sales, rather than bulk discount sales to others.
If they do file, I would expect the company would exit the loan writing business, but loan servicing- and the related work of disposing REOs- would continue unchanged. Just like the airlines still operate even when in bankruptcy court. If something is producing cash, its worth preserving.
One more thing- It’s not clear to me if Countrywide is truly the owner of record on all those houses, or if they are disposing of them for the bondholders for whom they do the mortgage servicing. Clearly if Countrywide does not really own all these houses, its not for them to decide exactly how to get rid of them.
