One of my evaluation customers who sends me work indicated that when I get to 60 total BPOs I will begin to receive BPOs directly to my email, exclusively, with a time limit to respond before it goes to the "free-for-all".  I'm on my 13th one now and at this rate I should get to my 60th one maybe by the summer of 2010.  Here's my evaluation of BPO's so far:

1. Some were so easy I had completed them within one afternoon in about 3 hrs.

2. Others, and most of them, require a moderate amount of work to get completed before the deadline, 1 to two days.

3. Then there are the rejects which all were late completing and took several days beyond the due date.

The Good:  payment by the evaluating company has been excellent, the pay fair but alittle extra pays for realty fees; learning new neighborhoods and subdivisions; generates a few leads to followup to a listing or sale.  My ranking is all above 91% to 100%, so far a clean record.

The Bad:  time consuming when the valuation is tough to complete or is rejected to needing more comps or explainations.

At least for me, it's nice to have the extra coin, and I talk with a lot of prospective people about BPOs values and I find and seek out a lot of FSBOs.

After spending several months away from AR with medical problems, I'm back at least for now.  Do the rest of you guys have medical insurance as a realtor?  Are you on your spouses insurance plan?  I hope so.  I'm with United Health Care which includes both major medical, hospitalization and prescriptions, dental, life and disability.  Copay usually of between $20 to $45 per visit to a provider.  Without it, I could have just spent $50,000.  As it was, I was out only $2,500 for the deductible and minor associate fees that averaged $12 to $20.  This is not an advertisement but I was just wondering what other realtors are doing for health care.   

Already the new year is off to a great start.  If you're an agent contemplating your next move to quit I recommend you do as I do when it looks like it's time to throw in the towel.  Wait 24hours, get some sleep, see a movie, take a trip, go to lunch with someone you can't stand to be around, go to a restaurant you've never been in or a new food group, and even better yet, find someone to help - take $50.00 and go to an orphanage or a nursing home, a cancer center, make a donation.  I once visited a assisted living home and was greeted by 10 wheel chaired old people wanting to talk to a living person.  When I finally got out of the nursing home, I had forgotten my problems all together,  and I set out to start again and continue on.

Just a heads up on items I found going through real estate journals.  A well respected agency here in the Dallas area was noted in the Dallas Business Journal (pg 3, Dec 5-11, 2008 issue) of another idea from thinking outside the box.  They have gone to banks and have solicited their REO departments to handle the new construction residential REO's (foreclosed on builders and/or builder inventories) and have contracted with them to not only list the REO (like normal), but to also add a service of "property management".   I had to work an new construction REO priced at $825,000 back in the summer and my first open house the AC didn't work (92 degrees inside the house), but also the lawn was being burned up from lack of water, entire inside was dusty and cob-webbed, light bulbs burned out, smoke alarm beeping, etc.  I called the bank REO department and passed on a rather lengthy list of items that needed to be correct and it took them 3 months for them to repair "most" of the items.

So I think I know where this agency above is going with this.  Just like in managing an apartment without a tenant, an agent gets an REO, new construction, empty house listing agreement signed and gets a property management agreement signed as well.  There will be two incomes on this one:  at the sale of the listing and monthly checks for managing the property, calling the yard man, calling the AC man, weekly checks on the property for cleaning for showing purposes, and generally get the property in showing condition to sell.  More later on this one....

One of the first tasks that my first agency firm wanted all new agents to do was to write a quick, brief business plan.  From my business background, I kicked one out in no time and set about doing the plan.  I started by writing a summary, a description of the entire plan, and then I wrote out the marketing plan, my expectations of income, total sales, a resume, financial actuals and projections over 3 years and finished with a wrapup or conclusion.  My first year I didn't even come close to meeting my goals or projections in the business plan but I wrote another one my second year and have been ever since.  It wasn't until my 3rd year as an agent that I wrote my plan that I actually met several of my goals.  What a year!  I've been and still write a business plan to this day.  I complete it during the span of time between Christmas and New Years.  I first update the previous year's business plan and then just make adjustments to marketing and goals, add new info on designations, education and include goals that were accomplished.

I encourage you and others to buy a book on business plans if you have never done one and set about writing it.  Maybe this way might seem a bit too much work, but it works well with me.  Once it's written down, aim at completing every goal and doing the plan. I think you'll be amazed with the results.

I finally finished my 2nd BPO after 3 rejections and it took a week doing the comps on the subject property in a subdivision with a lot of REO's, foreclosures, and new notices to be foreclosed on.  My hat is off to Pro-teck for being patient and communicating with me to arrive at a good solide opinion.  And I with them:   3 major emails, 12 comparables, several phone calls.  But when finished, I and them believe that Pro-tecks client has a very good idea of the value of their subject property.  The economic situation didn't help, and with the large number of foreclosures, using foreclosures for comps made my opinion and Pro-tecks' job much more difficult.

All in all, the opinion is done and so far both Pro-teck and I are happy with the conclusion.  Hopefully Pro-teck's client will understand.  From the perspective of a broker/agent - remember to just keep at until completed.  There's not much monetary reward for a BPO that takes a week, but a job well done is priceless.

Just finished BPO #2 with Pro-Teck.  It was an interior and other than the interior pictures that had to be taken, it was about the same as the exterior.  It took more time to complete due to the order needed comps to be as close to the subject property as possible and there was limited comps for the area.  This involved more explainations and reasons why some comps were used and others not.  Especially using a foreclosure as one of the comps.  But it's finished and on to the next one.  Approximate time to take the pics:  1.5hrs and two trips, subject was close to my home; approximate time to complete paperwork:  3hrs. I figure I'll get faster as time goes along and I get more familiar with the forms.  I've already started streamlining my process of these.

Man, I'm thinking that it's probably a good idea to start reading up on property management.  I've had two clients in the past week, one who wants to lease out her property I have listed for sale and the other who wants to purchase another distressed property and rent it.  Both are considering leasing but want me to management the properties.  And, on a recent BPO, an investor wants to continue purchasing property but we're meeting soon to look at the prospect of me managing his current homes and future purchases.  I have another past client who is now considering purchasing small apartment complexes (4plexes and 10 units and under) before the purchase prices start going through the roof.  Apartments are more cost effective than purchasing a home and leasing it. 

The way I figure it, all the people needing a place to live who are coming out of their homes, are going to need housing that is not only with less maintenance than a house but costs less than leasing a house.  And apartments do just that.  No more mowing the lawn and the costs to maintain a yard, no more general maintenance of appliances, a lower cost to house the family like less property taxes and insurance.  I see it happening already.  My customers are moving from a 2,000sf, 3bdrm,2b home, $1,600/mo plus the adding all of the other costs, to an apartment, smaller 3bdrm, 2b for a flat $1,400/mo and no more money down the drain.

This economy is changing fast.  I'm sitting here this morning looking at joining IREM.  What a hoot!!

I was holding an open house once and an agent popped in, toured real quick and then asked me why I was holding an open house.  She seemed impatient, said it was a waste of time, so I quickly responded about the way I see it-a way of meeting people who might be clients, prospecting, a way to learn about the surrounding community, talk the home up and meet-greet everyone and a way to get some work done while alone in the house.  She left quickly.  I held two more open house for this home before losing the listing without a sale.  A few weeks later I met her again at a social function, but she had a big smile on her face, came over and said that she finally held her own open house and sold the home to the third family in the door.  To me, you never know whom you'll met or who might buy.

If the client is ok for holding their home open to the public, I'll do it.  I consider open houses part of the work required to be an agent if the client wants it.

I have a client that I've listed her property.  Because of the slow moving market and the many calls as to whether my client would be interested in leasing her property is beginning to soak in.  With 6 people ready to lease her house, she's now thinking of leasing the property, but she asked me to manage it, get a lease signed, pickup the monthly checks, keep the lawn mowed and track the repairs, etc.  It's just I've not done property management before.  It can't be rocket science but having the extra time to do it might be the question.  Thoughts anyone....?