As a licensed Real Estate agent, with 20 years in RE and property management, I have had the recent "fun" of meeting the "other guy" on three interior bpo's. I know I meet the stated requirements of the bpo requestor IE license, experience, my hands on all aspects. I know that the "other guy" in all three instances did not. 1) College kid taking pictures 2) Desperate woman, divorced, asked for directions 3)Some scary guy. Not licensed, not experienced, in one case rude to the occ's, not even people who could be construed as RE assistants. I also know my numbers are off and I also know many of the companies that assign bpo's view this site. Any feedback?

The only assistants I use are, me, myself and I.

Mike

I know what you're talking about. I have a simple way to verify that I was at the property. All my street shots (interiors) have my vehicle in them.........end of problem.

Sure it's not your photo-taker's car?

In my opinion, there's NO WAY anyone can do more than 4-5/day without cheating like that but I could be wrong.

How many BPOs can you do in a day?

I have experienced, licensed agents handling my BPOs. I don't do these for any of the mills. However, my listing clients are well aware that I have a team and have no problem with that. No QC issues either since I refuse to hire idiots. Actually, the word I've received from my clients is that they would rather deal with a team effort rather then a "one man band".

I did data entry on 5 the other day and that was a very close to the top. I seem to recall having done 8 or 10 once by my lonesome in a day. But I'd call 6 tops for me.

No data entry software.

This question still comes down to location of your work & quality.

I live in an area where my normal drive time is 15 miles between orders in rural areas. Spread out, not much to comp with, lots of adjustments plus ..............

I go by the belief that you always give more than what's simply 'required'. Go the extra mile. Example; I've been giving all available comps by coverting the MLS PDF CMA to a jpeg and uploading as a picture on all orders. Not required but 2 big things it does.

1. Going the extra mile
2. I never have a QC problem because all of the perimeters I searched with are on the CMA, they know I did the best with what was available and see that I already expanded my search when needed.

Food for thought

My assistant doesn't own a car. Besides, I don't pay her enough to buy gas.....lol.

It's nice that you let her borrow yours so she can do your job for ya

I was just going to respond to your other statement about the 4/5 a day.

Not including taking pictures, I routinely complete around ten a day (or I was, until I lost LS). I'm usually out taking pictures for around three hours on average, so I guess I could do it in one day if I needed to. I'm just not sure if I'd be able to hit my due times, lol.

My day usually starts out with an early rise, then I complete my orders. I then leave here and take pics for the next day's orders. If I have to, I'll get a head start on the next day's orders when I return from taking photos.

I have never used anyone to take photos, and I have never had any help pulling comps or data entry. I've never really had the need for it.

Wrong thread maybe?

I thought about that until I found out she was blind in one eye and can't see out of the other.

Sometimes I have "help" from the company assigning me the bpos with regard to what comps to use. I usually refuse their assistance. So maybe they are doing my bpos for me if they don't like what I have inputed?

Of course there are people who want to do as many orders as possible and churn out trash for cash.

Once regulation jumps in they will vanish into another profession and take all the money with them not caring about what they turned in.

The companies are getting what they are paying for so it shouldn't be a shocker what some people will do.You reduce fees you get trash and to make the same margins people will cut corners.

I made the decision long ago to get out of it rather than cut corners because I turn in quality and for reduced fees was having to clean up someone else's trash.

^ I think you're right.

Although I don't mind reconciling BPOs, what I resent is the agent who's getting the bulk of the orders before me but they seem to price everything at median value without stopping to figure out if the house belongs there or if it belongs at the low or at the high end of the scale.

If history repeats itself, they'll go back to the pros and stay away from the shops.

Appraisers had up to 50 jr. appraisers underneath them, churning out appraisals at $100 bucks a pop. After awhile, banks learned that one appraiser cannot supervise the work of 50 guys. So they decided the local independent guys were better and worth the extra money upfront instead of wasting way more of it later on bad appraisals.

I actually have no problems with your posts, but it cracks me up how almost every post by you there is a mention of how you got out of that business. Never fails.

What are you doin' now Super? Business any good?

It totally infuriates me when I get a QC because they have a "prior report" and they need me to look at the prior comps. 99% of the time, the comps are in different areas or not even comparable to the subject.

Most offices that can take 100+ orders, in every zip code of a county and turn them around in 24 hours are usually using unlicensed agents and/or photo agents that take the photos. I also hear there are offices that sub their reports to India. They can afford to cut their fees because the photo agent gets a small fee, the agent that does the report (usually for areas they are not familiar with) gets their fee, and the fat cat on top gets their large chunk. As for companies that sub to India, that completely boggles my mind.

I cannot afford to lower my fees. It's just me. With gas prices on the rise and the amount of time I put into each report, I just can't do it. I wish all companies cared about the quality of work. There are only a few now that are putting their foot down.

OK, rant over

I highly recommend that anyone who has not read the very small book "Who moved my cheese" go to their local library and get it. You can read it in less than 1/2 an hour. I reread it every few months.

Our cheese was not just moved it has been removed for the time being. However, it is going to come back. When it does will it just plop back right where it was? Probably not. When it comes back you want to be where it is going to be not where it used to be.

There are still some smaller pieces of cheese out there but you have to be faster to find them. When the big chunks come back IMHO they will be in several places. REO, BPO, Short Sales, Conventional resale, commercial, property management etc. It may be prudent to embrace more than one specialty.

You have 2 choices in life, accept change and innovate or close your eyes and evaporate.

Best wishes and best of luck.

Quote "Most offices that can take 100+ orders, in every zip code of a county and turn them around in 24 hours are usually using unlicensed agents"

I am always a little suprised at the people that think if you do over 100 bpos per month you are somehow "cheating".
So far for June I'm at 129, and I have had plenty of time to work with a buyer, play with the grand kids, and work in our garden.
This is how I do it,,all of my accounts assign work in a 10 mile radius around my address. I wait till late morning or early afternoon to see what comes in and take the pics. Normally about 2 hours for 7 or 8 properties, I usually have comps pulled for most of them before I leave.
I know the forms for my mills really well and know what qc is wanting so I dont waste time typing comments they dont care about.
My husband takes my comps(that I pulled) and auto fills the forms(BPO AUTOMATION) and pics for me while I make comments and put in the values. We dont take any of the 30 dollar exteriors and 45 dollar interiors either.
Its really not that tough to do over 100 per month, I do put in some long days and Saturdays, but you would in any business.

No, I am saying 100+ orders per day. Not month. 100 orders per month is the norm (or was) for most of us.

There are offices (at least here is Fl) that will be assigned over 100 orders per day by the same company.

Oh I am soooo stealing this! It's perfect!

I'm sure it helps a lot to have someone shop for groceries, cook meals, clean the house, make the beds and chauffeur your children.

100 + a day,,,ya, that might take me an extra hour or two lol, I know a company here that will assign some brokers 3-400 at a time when they get a big drop, but it doesn't happen too often.

I have done 5 in one day, but believe me, I didn't do much else that day!

Around here, I haven't run into anyone who wasn't a licensed Realtor - and generally, someone who I knew, but then again, we're a small area . . . don't have the volume of bpo's or Realtors that much of the rest of the country has.

I don't want to get off topic but to answer SMG's question yes I am doing very well.

I have 14 residential agents now down from 45 a year ago.The residential market for me has low margins.My goal was to get up to a few hundred agents years ago and then get swallowed up selling off that part to one of the big boys.I did receive a merger buyout offer from Metro Brokers/GMAC real estate but never called them on it.

I have been weeding out the slacker agents over time and have grandfathered in the good ones to stay.

I charged a 300 per trans fee.The time it took away from my deals was not productive.Many of these starving agents hop from brokerage to brokerage and you have mounds of paperwork for license lapse fees,education not completed,suspension for child support payments,money owed on student loans,IRS levy demand letters and on and on.Out of so many agents only a few will close deals.

My model now is agents on a 50/50 split and I mentor them on commercial real estate and I do my own investments and my own commercial listings as well.I have 3 commercial agents now and I am growing that segment.

Price point is much higher in commercial.

Much higher ROI and this year will be my best yet.When I was doing bpo's it was for much higher fees.I was never blazing fast like some of you cranking them out.My fastest time ever was about 20 minutes.I averaged about 35 to 40 minutes a BPO.My area has some rural parts so they are more challenging than urban core.

Some of you that are super fast and use auto software can still churn them out and hit a liveable return.The most I ever hit in a month was 55 and the most I completed in a day was 6.

I probably could have increased more volume but years ago I was happy with just 3 companies that paid very well on the bpo's and gave 4 days for completion.

I hope whatever anyone is doing it they are making a ton of money.

With inflation costs are going up.People can only cut so much so the answer is you have to make more money to live comfortably.

All the best.

[quote=Doin' bpose]I did data entry on 5 the other day and that was a very close to the top. I seem to recall having done 8 or 10 once by my lonesome in a day. But I'd call 6 tops for me.

No data entry software.[/quote]

Why work harder, when you can work smarter?

I am just really amazed when I hear many say how they can do numerous BPOs per day. I only did 3 in my prior years and the forms were extremely similar to an appraisal form. I'd get them done in a day but it was a 24 hour deadline. The day I received 2, other real estate stuff had cropped up. It was way too stressful so I opted out.

I must be doing things way to anally and detailed that it can take me quite awhile to find appropriate comps - maybe I just dig too deeply trying to find good answers, and, I've been in the business 10 years! Eh? I'd love your feedback.

Exactly- we are a husband and wife team. We on average complete 5 a day, majority interiors. We do have other business ventures keeping us going. I am in amazement of those you can crank high volume orders accurately. We spend way too much time in comp selection. Even though we have BPO's down to a science it still takes over an hour to complete 1 order. Yesterday, got flagged from QC about a townhome exterior we did and the prior stated its a condo. Down here it's the world of make believe. Call QC person, she mentioned that it is not uncommon for agents to fabricate comps. geez.

I agree; the BPO volume is definitely going to escalate as the REO activity ramps up. I recently read in the WSJ that there are currently 5 million non-performing loans that are active on domestic bank's balance sheets. That's a lot of inventory to move! Saddle up boys & girls!

Recently, I've been completing an alternative-BPO product published by AppraiserLoft called ValuClear. It's basically an abbreviated desktop BPO / CMA, and I can usually finish one report in 15 minutes or so.

Just wanted to share. I registered here: https://www.appraiserloft.com/landing/valuclear

same here, me,myself and I- anything other thatn taht is a GROSS VILOATION and subject to be terminated entirely from the BPO world- and don't you forget it!

I completely agree with this. It is not only a gross violation of policies we agree to with most companies, it's also a law violation if you're using someone other than a licensee to do anything other than enter data that you already run yourself.

People need to ask themselves whether they should be signing their name to something so important when it is done by others. My reputation is too important to me.