Whereas large groups of loans in prior months have focused on the well-known hotbeds of distressed properties—e.g., Florida or Las Vegas—this one includes "all the major MSAs," says Korbar. The fact that more than half of the assets are multifamily is consistent with their being close to major city centers, as is the pool's high concentration of retail assets. The pool includes concentrations of assets in New York, Florida, Massachusetts, California, New Jersey, Illinois and Connecticut.

Investors may be seeing more of these geographically diverse pools as 2010 goes on. For sellers, part of the appeal is "reducing concentration of risk," says Korbar. "Also, you can optimize your pricing by not just focusing on one distressed region or city. And the buyer's advantage is that you have more assets that are nationally dispersed. You open up a whole new buyer's market."

Korbar says that wide geographic spread is a plus for local investors, and particularly smaller entities that may only want to bid on one asset. "It promotes buyers that are proximate to the assets," he says. "They know the assets very well, and they understand the intrinsic value, both now and x number of years from now. They're not in it to buy it and flip it." At the same time, he says, "for institutional investors that want to reduce their exposure to any one area, this clearly gives them a lot of diversity."