Bpo's have never been a big part of my business, but I have done 4-10 a month for the last year. For the first 9 months I only had orders from one Asset Management Company who can assign listings and one who assigned, but does not give out listings. They paid ok, but mostly I enjoyed doing them for the incredible education I received. Also, the Valuations analyst in the company that does assign listings are really nice!!!! Last summer I started getting orders from some other companies, which come as broadcast blasts. Since I enjoyed doing it for the other companies, and at that time had some extra time, I accepted some of these broadcast orders. It was a nightmare! They were so much harder, took hours longer to complete, did not really teach me more about valuing a home in this market, and did not pay as well as original company. I have gotten much busier this fall so I stopped excepting the orders from these BPO mills and just delete them as they come in. But today I had to read the order several times because I could not believe what I saw. The BPO offer was for $20, which I wouldn't accept if it were my own house. However, the property is not my house. It is for a house in Woodside that is worth over $2,000,000. How would you feel if you had a multi million dollar asset and your bank was paying someone $20 to tell them how much it is worth. It is not a tract, it is a unique home that has no other home exactly like it.
Really? The fate of this owner's financial life is the hands of someone making about $5 an hour before expenses. That is a scary thought.
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We have recently started another venture in our business and it is working out pretty good for my college students. The make $12.50 a hour just to babysit the open houses for Realtor's.
They dress professionally, are not allowed to answer any questions with regards to the property they are sitting at. They just show people around when there is a open house and hand out the fliers to the prospective buyers. This allows the Realtor to concentrate on more listings and hold more open houses.
I have been in the preservation industry over 20 years and when I started we where paid $15.00 dollars for a drive-by inspection and we where paid a $1.00 per photo. Now there are companies out there paying contractors $3.00 per inspection and zero for the photos. Fair warning watch your fees continue to drop as time goes on.
As Jessie has said, they (BPO companies) are looking to make money. But as a reviewer has recently told me, lender and AM companies are looking for information they don’t have. Treating agents not professionally will result lack and wrong information which will lead decision maker to be in position to sell asset at lower value. I see that already in my area where BPOs are coming as Rush behind one who did not complete as requested.
Well, unfortunately what you experienced isn't anything new. Truth is, I mentioned this was going to start happening back on May 24 of this year in a response to another blog here on REOPro. See my link below...
http://reopro.ning.com/forum/topics/secured-lending-service-is-1?co...
The reality is, we have so many agents struggling to get any kind of work that the BPO Mills realized that they can save money by simply cutting the rates they pay. Now, most agents, back in May told me via email or replies to the blog that they simply wouldn't do a $15.00 - $20.00 BPO but, I sugested back then, that isn't really a problem because, another agent will.
My point is, this industry (BPO Mills) have 2 starct realities and, they are....
1. They will cut the rates because making money is their goal.
2. They will find agents to do their BPOs for the discounted rate because agents are desperate.
The main argument I heard from pissed off agents was, these BPO Mills should be focused on quality and quality comes with a price. These agents are right but, what they were failing to understand is that the quality control doesn't take place with the agent doing the BPO, it takes place with the person reading over your BPO making sure it's right.
So, yes, rates will get even lower.....a $20.00 BPO will start becoming the norm, mainly because of the 2 reasons I listed above. Yes, agents will do $20.00 BPOs, they already are and that is why this particular company was gusty enough to pay out $20.00. Lastly, quality isn't controlled with the agent, it's with the hourly paid person back at the BPO Mills office.
Honestly, I didn't think reduced BPO rates would happen till next year, 2011 but, apparently I was wrong because, your blog is the third or fourth mention of discounted rates that I have seen since May.
People need to understand it's coming so, get ready.