I was asked to do a BPO on a diner for $50.

I was asked to do a BPO on a firehouse for $50.

I was asked to do a BPO on a large retail store (picture Sears) for $50.

I was asked to do a BPO on two houses on one 1/2 acre parcel in the middle of nowhere for $50 (separate septics?, subdividable?, who knows, wing it).

Do you turn in a real ugly BPO or do you turn it down?

I have turned in some really ugly bpos when there are no good comps available. Not that I want to do it that way. I figure if they don't like my results, they can pay for a full-blown appraisal. I give them more than their money's worth for their lousy $50 or so bucks. I have never attempted a commercial bpo.

Got one yesterday for three buildings on one lot. Building #1 is an old house (built 1870) being used as the office for the RV storage and firewood sales business being conducted in the other buildings. Contacted the rep for clarification but haven't heard back yet. There aren't any residential comps within 40 miles, and none of the agents in this market use the MLS for commercial.

My most "unique" one was 2 doubles on the same lot in the middle of a neighborhood full of SF. Of course it was in the city, so they wanted all of the comps to be within a mile, sales within 6 months, etc. Of course there were no other comps that had 2 doubles on the same lot and there were only a couple of 4 unit properties in the area and none within 1 mile. I don't do commercial BPOs, so I don't have that problem. I give them the best BPO I can, but sometimes the comps just aren't there.

40 room abandoned motel.
House with a car painting business (5 bay and 4 bay garages on property)

I did them, just strongly recommended a formal appraisal throughout the report.

A real estate office! At least that was back in the good old days when CW paid $60 for a drive-by.

A strip club.

I think I would have provided an inspection of the interior for free.

I just finished one 2 days ago for a house that was burnt to the ground on 4 acres.

14000 sq. ft. 80 year old schoolhouse in a rural area that has 2400' of living space on 4 acres. Very hard to comp. But it made it through today without getting QC'd so we'll see...

Not that one you wouldn't have. Glad it was a drive-by. People still talk about that place & it's been closed for years.

I had a 10 acre farm in the suburbs, I had to go 35 miles out for comps.

My little gated community experience today is wacked.
A whole bunch of sold comps, all of them it seems with a foreign address/name and WAY overpaid.
Listing "A" is asking 799,000 and the one next to it 265,000.
125 active listings appears to be about half of all the units in the handful of buildings there.

One of my sold comps 6 months ago for 650,000 is also an active listing for 310,000 and it's not REO.
I can't make any sense of it.

On the same floor of my subject, about same size I have a sold in the last 7 months of 735,000 and another for 320,000.
Both sold within 30 days of each other and have an equal view.
Another listing same floor that appears equal has been listed for 200 days at under 300,000 and by all accounts is in great shape.

I'll land somewhere in the middle of al that crap.

OK, not that hard after all.
Just weird what's going on.

Had one about a year ago that a regular client called and just asked to do as best I could;

Main building was a tavern built in the early 1800's. Next to it was an old motel (1950's) probably built when the PA turnpike exit was built about 300 yards away. Looked like the motel was being used only for storage, lots of old furniture and matresses piled up outside. On the turnpike side was a stone parking lot for the tavern-restaurant.

It was all on one parcel, but the county line ran through the middle of the property. The property was assessed in one county, but the street address was for a town in the other county.

Took us a while to figure this one out.

Office condos where nothing has sold in the last 5 years because nobody wants to buy them.

A mobile home on 40 acres. I had big fun trying to find comps. Thank GOD it was for a BPO mill that rarely send me business cuz I ended up about 15K less than it sold for. It was one ugly BPO.

If you can't comp a property, it probably can't be comped. That is, if its so unique that there is nothing to compare it to, it will sell for whatever some fool is willing to pay for it and thinks it is worth. No way can you actually predict what that price will be, except from a strong sense of intuition or maybe a crystal ball.

The one I struggled the most with was a 100+ year old log cabin, all hand-hewn logs, etc, with a 1990 addition and all updated. That wasn't the hard part. It sat on 80 acres with a good 1/4 mile of river frontage in an area where NOTHING had sold within 10 miles in the past 1.5 years. I was advised to find a comp or two for the land and the same for the house, then combine them and comment like crazy. The only river-front land that had sold was about 40 miles away, and about $5000 per acre, but that wasn't realistic in this area. Of course, there aren't a lot of log homes like that around that had sold, either. I thought it was a good price, but a bad report, but I got a thank-you. Seems that one had been assigned to 3 different agents who had all inspected but never completed the report because it was too difficult, then to 1 who had said there was absolutely no value in the house and valued it at only $1000 per acre for the land... That's one agent who was probably hoping it would be a foreclosure and they could snatch it up at that price!

I had a drive-by where it was mid-remodel and then vandalized - big old house on a huge swath of land next to a busy thoroughfare. There were no comps and who knows what was behind the boarded up windows? Did the half-completed bathroom need a toilet roller holder and a shower rod? Or was it torn out to the wall studs?

Luckily, it was listed and pending sale - so, knowing that the buyers are the ones who set the price, I valued it at that. What else could I have done? lol