I just started doing BPOs about 2 weeks ago. Last week I was crazy busy with orders from EML, yesterday I didn't see one request in my area.

Just wondering, is there an ebb and flow with BPO orders? Are certain times of the month, quarter and year busier than others?

There is little rhyme or reason to the flow of orders. I have picked on a end of the month lull over the years, but you just demonstrated that is not relavent in your situation.

Since BPOs are ordered for any host of reasons you have to consider these variables to help understand.

1) Which companies am I signed up with?
2) Where am I geographically?
3) How many competing agents am I sharing the work with?

Here is another illustration of how things can buck the trend. Holidays and 3 day weekends, (weekends in general) tend to be lighter in volume, but if you are working you can be busier than normal since your fellow agents might be taking time off to travel or just relax and enjoy themselves.

Welcome to the grinder.

What Doin said,,as soon as I think I have it figured out it changes. Mondays were always slow, now there really busy, the first of each month used to be busy, now its slower than the last two weeks of the month, don't drive yourself crazy trying to figure it out........

seems like its been a while since a newbie was on here asking this type of question.

that said, you might be suprised how many orders you might see between 2 and 6 AM.

If you google a time zone driven, religious holiday adjusted work calendar for India, you would gain some ground on this one. I once got twelve assignments on Christmas Day........and I took them.

Don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing...

It could be neither, just a pontification of sorts maybe.

BTW the / was out of the second quote thingy, which is why it showed up in your post without the quote box. See I added it and it framed King's quote from your post.

You might be able to add it through the edit function if you are interested.

Plan an expensive vacation and go out of town. BPOs will come pouring into your inbox at that time.

Thanks. I didn't even notice that I screwed up the tag like that. I deleted part of the quote out, and I guess I got a little delete-button happy. And I don't think I had enough coffee at that point, either.

This.

Not only will you have spent money to go out of town, you'll lose a bunch while you're gone.

Only if you actually go out of town. We plan a trip and only my wife goes. Works like a charm as I am so busy when she leaves with REOs and offers that I can hardly keep up. We do not do the paid BPOs but I would guess it is the same there as well.

book a flight. when you're about to leave on the trip, 50 orders will hit your inbox.

It also depends on how you are fishing. Have you just thrown your bait out in the water and sitting back waiting for a bite, or are you constantly casting and checking for a bite?

Constantly casting and moving from one honey hole to another always produces more fish - it is more work - but produces more too - Just make sure you clean and eat all the fish you catch and you'll have plenty to eat!

When you have to P real bad. Go to the bathroom and when you get back, you can bet your bottom dollar you missed at least 2 or 3.

It didn't work too well for me recently, we went to the Washington wine country for 4 days and all I got the day I left was 1 listing agreement and 2 offers on two houses. I was really hoping for some new REO properties, but no such luck. Now my inventory is down to nil, well 3 properties.

Maybe I need to schedule a trip farther than 5 hours from home.