BPO Questions and Answers: 10 Secrets to Completing Broker Price Opinions Like a Pro!

The BPO business is an exciting foreclosure industry niche to be in today. Whether you are a veteran realtor or new to the business, real estate agents often spend several hours a week creating Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) for potential clients in the hopes of getting a listing or convincing a buyer to do so. make an offer. In the end, all agents expect their CMA to pay off well; But it’s not always like this. However, when you complete a BPO, you are confident that the report you spend an hour or two to complete will generate additional income for that month.

So what’s between you and that paycheck when you complete a BPO? Aside from the obvious need to photograph the property and complete the report, there is a department in each BPO company that handles quality control. If you can’t get through this department, it will not only delay how quickly you get paid, but it will also determine if you will receive additional BPOs from that company. Also, if your orders are delivered on time and without errors, your chances of selling that property when foreclosed is increased because banks know that you are a trusted real estate agent.

After completing more than 2000 BPO in the last 18 months, I would like to share with you 10 secrets to completing your BPO reports like a pro:

1. Immediately after accepting a BPO order, read the confirmation email and note the DATE and TIME the order is due. Please note the time zone of the expiration time as it may be different from your current time zone. Not paying attention to this can make the difference between a report that is delivered on time and one that is late.

2. Please note whether the order is an exterior or interior BPO. If it is an interior, look for the information of the point of contact (POC) to access the property as soon as possible. Also note what photos are required. There is nothing worse than forgetting to take the right photos. It is better to take too many photos than too few.

3. Most BPO companies have a website that you log in to to complete the report. Be sure to log into that company’s website and read the full details of that report, which will include the guidelines for that report. This will save you a lot of trouble in your analysis of the property and when shopping for comparables.

4. Obtain the tax record and / or call the County Assessor’s office to learn all you can about the property. Enter the parcel number of the property, the land and market appraised values, if the property is residential or commercial, the property taxes in effect for the entire year, if there is any back taxes, and the year in which it occurred. the last appraisal. Property taxes will be provided by the Treasury Department.

5. If you do not have access to information inside a property, call the BPO company and ask if they have a prior appraisal on file. Also, if you are having trouble finding comparables, call the BPO company’s quality control department for guidance. They can usually help you properly expand your search criteria to find additional comparables and will make notes in the system that will prevent your order from being returned. When all else fails, find the best comparables available and provide full details in the report about the criteria you expanded and why.

6. During the completion of some reports, you will be asked to make adjustments to comparables. This process can be tedious and time consuming if you don’t know how to do it. My best suggestion is to look at your market and determine how different attributes like square footage, bedroom count, bathroom count, age, and lot sizes vary in terms of additional profit for a property. From here you can create a system in which you can adjust the differences between the property in question and the comparables you have chosen. Remember, you only adjust to the comparable for the property in question only, not between each comparable. This process acts to put all comparables on an even playing field when evaluating them with respect to the property in question, so that a broader picture of the subject’s fair market value can be evaluated.

7. When selecting comparables, ensure that the interior square footage of the comparables matches those of the property in question. For example, if the subject is 1000 square feet above ground level, the comparables could be 800 square feet, 950 square feet, and 1100 square feet. These comparables would put the topic in parentheses because 1000 square feet is between 800 square feet and 1100 square feet. Also, all square footage is measured in terms of gross living area (GLA) and includes only square footage above ground level (ground level). Basements are not part of a property’s GLA because they are below ground level.

8. The final value of the property in question must be in brackets between the lowest sold comparable and the highest sold. For example, the ending value is $ 100,000 and the comparables sold have values ​​of $ 91,000, $ 98,000, and $ 103,000. As a result, $ 100,000 is appropriately between $ 91,000 and $ 103,000. Your comparable assets do not have to put the final value in parentheses. In most markets, active comparables are priced above the ending sales value unless the market is declining significantly each month.

9. Your final value must also be within the range of values ​​sold in the subject’s neighborhood during the last 12 months. Typically this is what is requested when a report looks for the ‘neighboring values’. For example, the ending value is $ 100,000 and your lowest-selling home in your subject’s neighborhood is $ 55,000 and the highest is $ 165,000. The final value of $ 100,000 would be appropriately bracketed within the range of values ​​of the subject neighborhood.

10. Be sure to check the entire report for spelling and grammar errors before submitting. You will also see that many BPO companies have a quality control checker or validation tool that looks for errors in the report. This only checks that your numbers are within acceptable guidelines and will not check for spelling and grammar errors. If you come across quality control errors, then it is vital that you review them thoroughly and write explanations as to why you had to exceed the guidelines provided by the BPO company in each and every aspect mentioned. The more information you provide, the less likely the QA department will mark and return the report.

There are many variables that must be considered during the BPO finalization process. Hopefully, these secrets I’ve shared with you will help you complete your BPOs faster and save you wasting extra time answering questions from your BPO company’s QA departments.

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