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        • John, why not leverage yourself out through your contacts?  Surely you're having signs installed at your listings by a sign vendor who is photographing said sign installation & emailing to you from the location?  Ask them if they would be willing to photograph some properties for you and agree to a rate for interior & exterior BPO's.  This is how I photograph all my properties.  I spent one week w/them teaching them the in's, out's, do's & dont's... Now they take better BPO photos than I used to take!  They upload them to our Shared Drive - typically an exterior has about 15 pics, and an interior has as many as 150 sometimes.  We honor a $10.00 drive-by fee, and a $17.00 interior fee.  I've trained them to take street sign photos, HOA signage photos, street views, and all needed views for us to successfully complete our BPO for our client(s).  This eliminates the strain on your personal vehicle and leverages a relationship.  The company gave us a discount on our sign installations now, too :-)

           

          Just an idea from outside the box!

          • That is interesting information, at this point we put the sign out ourselves and I have been paying $12 an order for BPO pics but when these companies keep dropping your pay from $50 to $45 to $40 down to $38 you get to the point where your margine is razor thin. On top of that is the 20-30 REO's I currently have that I have to oversee.......Gets overwhelming! Thanks for the tip!
            • John, I was in the same boat as you.  I worked for an independent agency and "did it all" - and by myself, even.  It was killing me, and eating my personal/family time.  I was losing my sanity - but I was making good money & still doing a great job, so I kept getting more listings/assignments for BPO's.....

               

              Systems & leverage of people are your two best assets as an Agent in this REO/BPO game.  You should look for a sign post installation company. You should shop two or three of them first, and then get the one who you get the best "vibe" from - mine was a locally owned, christian man, named Art @ Titan Sign Posts.  I told him my goals, asked his comfort w/photographs, etc. and then I actually got him to price-match my sign cost quote from another vendor (who I didn't get the same vibe from).  I offered him the exclusive for all of our tri-county coverage for all retail, reo, s/s sign installs.  Was a great relationship, and then when I added the BPO business I knew he was already comfortable w/the photos because I had asked initially & require him to email me pics of signs up/down.  I offered him the $10/$17 per house, and he reduced my sign installation cost the following month by $2/sign - not much, but everything helps to reduce the P&L :-) 

               

              The cheapest BPO I complete is a $40 one from AltiSource for an exterior drive-by; but they give me 100+ a month of these, so there is value for me.  It costs $1/bpo for my auto acceptance program to grab those, and then $10 per property for pics, so $11 leaves $29 on the table, less $8.00/hr salary to my data entry agent and $7.00 per BPO bonus (if over 300).  Worst case is $14 profit on a $40 order which is still 35% profit margins.

               

              OH: the key to this being successful is keeping your data entry agent on task and completing an average of 1-BPO (or more) per hour.  When you, as the Agent, are pulling the comps and giving them the info - all they are completing is Data Entry - which I have already typed most of it and saved it for the GEO Areas that we service, they just have to edit it to be specific to the property!  My average is 1.875 BPO's per hour worked from my Data Entry Agent!   

               

              Food for thought :-)

              • The BPO companies CLEARLY state YOU are to take the photos, select the comps, etc.....that is why we have the real estate licenses.....

              • Hi Ira:

                What auto acceptance program do you use?

                I keep missing those altisource orders that come in the middle of the night.

                Thanks!

                • Hi Monica,

                   

                  I'm glad to see you're out in CA :-)  Now I can divulge my sources, LOL!  I actually am using the great BPO Automation Software found right here on this site, REO Pro - Mr. Jesse Gonzalez turned me on to it, I read several reviews about it here from other Agents using it, and I went ahead and pulled the trigger - it literally paid for itself in the first month!  LITERALLY!  I went from doing less than 75 BPO's per month, to (283) in September and (300) in October.  It's the "BPO Automation Group" - the cost was roughly $500 to get started & there is a "per BPO order fee" that is charged as well.  This is money well spent, rest assured.  And - and - and - I don't get a lick of incentive or payment for saying that about them; I have no affilliation with them other than being a CLIENT myself.  They offer a large amount of the BPO companies for auto accept, while some others they are still working on adding.  Good luck!

                  • Is there a bpo automation program that works with Altisource new platform? If so, I am not aware of it.

                  • when you said it cost you $1 per acceptance I thought you were using someone else.

                    I did the trial version , when just came out and It was able to capture 3 orders in 2 weeks , so I got kind of disappointed. But maybe now things have change , I will probably check them up again

              • Thanks for the excellent info! I am doing a great job so I keep getting more work but with these companies cutting costs I find everyone in my office is tripping over each other costing me more! I just want to get this to be more efficient.
      • Colorado.  I get 1-2 orders a week from them which is good as I live in a small town.
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