I'm out.

When I started doing BPO's it was for beer money. $200 a month was great. Then everything blew up and I had contractors to manage, operational systems to build, and off-shore accounts. I'll be the first to admit that I never had any interest in selling RE. I got my license for MLS access, the ability to find and buy investment properties, and the occasional deal to help a friend. I stumbled onto this site back in '07 and signed up with all of the companies, BEFORE I was licensed. The day after getting licensed I got my first order, then 20, the 40, then 100, etc.

Looking back I've come to realize that I wasted a lot of time doing this stuff. It's like crack. The kids soccer games were missed, the wife started referring to me as the hermit in the basement, and I racked up a crapload of miles on my vehicle. My devilish side does enjoy being attacked by pit-bulls while doing an interior, getting shot at for being the wrong color in the wrong part of town, and falling through basement stairs. Good fun! On the other hand, I have realized that my quest to dominate my market succeeded, and all I got out of it was fee reductions and anguish. They didn't even send me a stinkin' T-shirt

The sad part is the contractors who will no longer get paid. They actually rely on the money to make it through the month. I always considered this gig and RE in general a joke, but this will impact others more than it will ever impact me.

I think there is some type of saying that goes, "Play the Game, Don't be the Game". In my opinion, we are all being gamed, and I'm leaving with my sanity.

Best of luck to everyone. This forum is the de-facto place to go when you want to learn something. Kudos to the folks who built and operate this venue.

Your a brave brave soul, and strong too! Best of luck... what the hey are you planning now?

"another one bites the dust" (yay)

Oh, I'm sorry, did I type that out loud? Well, anyways, it seems you're doing what's best for you and your family. Best of luck to you always

Beer money should have been fun for a while!

But seriously, some of us are stuck in this business, one way or another. Personally, I'd like to move on but I have to put food on my family's table, and currently have no other options for income.

You didn't say it, but I will. This business now sucks big time. The changes in this industry have affected most of us and our contractors in a big way. When I called a favorite contractor for a trash-out recently, he actually came up and gave me a hug when I met him at the property.

Welcome to the new normal!

And best of luck to you Ryan!

Ryan, Well wishes on your next endeavor...

Hope you at least drop in once in a while and let us know how you are doing. Best of luck.

Good luck Ryan, you made good contributions to the forums.



This is the nagging feeling I've been having lately. Why did I put so many years and effort and sacrifice into a business I can't:
A)sell.
B)expand on any major scale
C)control my own destiny. i can't come up with new products, enter new markets, or evolve. i just have to take what the middlemen in this industry give me.


I won't make the same mistake again.

For those of you who can't/don't want to exit, please make sure you have some sort of plan B. Its only going to get worse from here.

I'm hearing similar thoughts from a lot of agents and brokers.

I agree that the deck is stacked against us and we're being squeezed out. We are no longer in charge of our own destiny.

No matter how good you are (you may be the BEST at what you do), there are no rewards except the feeling of a job well done. Dwindling monetary compensation resolutely is destroying that sense of accomplishment, however. When you look at your commission check (especially LAs), you feel used and sometimes embarrassed. When your office mgr hands you your check with a sad, rueful look, knowing how hard you worked to get that small amount, you realize that you may be working for less than s/he.

The only possibly positive anomaly I see (in my area) with respect to the BPO sector, is that BPO mills are running out of victims. I see the same BPO requests coming over my desk again and again. This indicates that few agents are taking them anymore. If that trend continues we could see a change for the better. OR mills will find ways to get the reports done without agents. It's a 50/50 chance.

I've looked at just dumping the REO part and concentrating on BPO's only. The bank sellers are getting a little nuts with requirements (weekly dated picture, monthly marketing reports that are just BPO's, crazy requests like sending tasks at 6PM with due times of the next day at Noon).

At least on the valuation side, you can say yeh or nay. And I'm finding that people doing BPO's are dropping like flies. I got the same interior request yesterday from 3 different mills, one of whom assigns. I was able to pick the best paying one, which was not the one that assigns. And I'm more able to negotiate fees with some mills that before would just say no.

Sounds like someone should have followed the saying "work smarter, not harder". I agree the business is getting worse, but I can still crank out 200-300 a+ reports a month without too much bother. However I have a great system in place that allows me to do so. There are definitely some frustrations that come along with it, but I still take most of the weekend off and usually have free time throughout the week. The REO business on the other hand is starting to get to me. I would rather do BPO's, than sell some POS in the ghetto and make $1,000. REO is starting to become more of a bother, but I still make some money from it so I will keep at it.

I dumped the REO business about six months ago. I have just one REO listing left and when that is gone, I am gone from that sector. When I figured out that the idiot "transaction coordinator" in India who can't even speak English and who has almost destroyed the contract the property is under more than once was making more than I was, that was it for me.

BPOs are clearly a suicide path at this point, too. There is a reason agents are turning them down, and that reason is they don't pay enough to make it worthwhile when they keep upping and upping the amount of work necessary to collect your $40 or $50 a crack.

I am not giving up on the real estate business entirely, though. There are some niches out there that might make life worth living again, and I intend to pursue them.

Not every.single.bit of the real estate business has been taken over by unresponsive banks, outsourced morons, and cutthroat price cutting BPO mills.

I look back and realize the biggest mistake I made was not realizing that the banks/BPO companies do hold all the cards. No matter how hard you work, they can send orders back for any BS reason. Also, I never thought I would see fees drop so far. I actually see orders from Old Republic for $30...and the orders get picked up in under 3 mins. The only positive thing I have seen is that orders in more rural area sit and no one takes them. That has allowed me leverage to get higher fees on those few orders.
I am prettty much leaving the business....I have a resume together and have taken classes to change fields.

Ryan- Best of luck to you. While this is a lot tougher grind than it once was, I am still able to make a living by changing some of how I do business. For openers, I will not touch FB during the day, no more drumming or cooking websites during BPO time. My personal distractions eat tons of my time. I am a firm believer that while the pay cuts suck, added stuff sucks as well...that I can work a bit smarter, tweak some stuff and still make a living.Lots of folks here have been going off the last couple of days. While I do understand their point, go work at some corporation and tell me how much you enjoy that. They do the "work for less, take on more" thing much more than we are seeing with BPOS.

Anyhoo.. Everybody knows what is best for them and I certainly hope things work out for you. I too, am "the hermit in the other room"...it pays our bills and probably my absence helps the marriage in some twisted way...LOL.

Best to you My Bruthah!

Bah! You'll be back. One day a BPO order will come in and you'll say oh just this one. Then an REO assignment will come and you will say this one won't be so bad I'll do one more. Like you said Ryan it's like crack. But best of luck to you.

Good luck in your future endeavors! I am wondering what you and some others here have in mind as "alternate" businesses, or are you going to get a "gasp" real job?

I have worked my butt off, am also the hermit in the other room, doing bpos and Reos, trying to do everything just right and on time and my commissions are getting lower and bpos are getting longer. I couldnt even find someone to rekey yesterday, everyone is quitting!

And getting scored!!! I can't even comment on that. The AM's I have worked with have been great, it's the policies and super stringent rules that are killing us.

Don't want to give up though, since I still have to eat!!