...just a side note on this. To my knowledge, the bulk of bpo's are done through 3rd parties ( mills ) that outsource to multiple agents typically, getting several broker price opinions vs 1 appraisal. Wouldn't that diffuse the "fraud" part of their arguement. It's not like bpo agents meet in a dark alley twice a week to match up our bpo orders and fix prices. You guys aren't meeting some place without me, are you?

We were wondering where you have been. Remember you have to use the decoder ring to get the GPS locator data from the hidden messages that you have to read backwards.

*** has been at the front of this all along - but remember *** has an appraisal division as well I guess it hard to play both sides of an issue, well at least *** was smart enough to wait until annual dues were collected before remembering who puts the meat on the table.

As far as appraisers being concerned about fraud - I would challenge them to prove it is any worse through bpo then by appraisals. I mean how many times do you see the appraisal come is at $2000 above contract price.

I wonder how many times a deal has fallen through with a matched appraisal on a property, and then sold and closed with another offer and appraisal with completely different numbers, but with the appraisal then coming in at $2000 over that OPC.

I'll take the old wait and see about *** support. It still can be smoke and mirrors, as a PR campaign to its members, and I hope this is not the case.

ROFL!!!

I've seen too many appraisals "hit the number" to believe they're believable.

I bet that an appraisal would match my BPO price - I lost the bet because they IGNORED the FLIPPED house NEXT DOOR with a POOL that sold recently and instead they went out to find comps that were 20yrs older/farther away.

NAR supports BPO YEAH

http://www.dsnews.com/articles/nar-supports-use-of-bpos-in-hafa-program-2010-03-17

from the article above:
“Generally speaking, real estate agents and brokers are not independent or properly trained valuation specialists,” the letter said. “They have an inherent bias towards quick results and actions which produce a fee for themselves, irrespective of whether the lender, servicer, investor, property owner, and/or borrower gets a fair return on the short sale.”

There's a chick in my territory who brags she can do 10/day. From my past reconciliations with "prior BPOs" I'm pretty sure its she who grabs just any old comp and plugs it. I've been FLOORED by her comps -- absolutely ridiculous and wrong in so many ways.

Agents must know valuation to price a property else they can be deemed incompetent. However, what do appraisers know about selling real estate and market forces? Do any of them have the experience to sell property?

If you're an appraiser, that's called appraiser independence. Shows you how much the appraisal institute knows about short sales. The agents completing the BPOs for the bank have no interest in the sale (or at least they shouldn't) just like an appraiser (who shouldn't have an interest, either).