I have read lots of posts on Active Rain and elsewhere about BPO’s and the REO market in general. I started wondering what the fiduciary duty these companies have to their clients (the lending institution). Do they have to disclose that they are charging:
- fees to the Realtors to join their sites to have an “opportunity” to learn if there even are BPO’s in our area;
- Fees to have access to state or local level data;
- Fees to buy access to territories like cities or zip codes (with who knows how many other agents doing the same thing);
- Training fees so we can be members of “their” proprietary systems;
- If the third party BPO mill gets say $100.00 from X Lender, do they have to disclose that they only pay the Realtor $50 (or what ever fee)?
Do they have to disclose that the Realtors have to pay the BPO company “Referral fees” for the listing if they ever assign one?
Shouldn’t the BPO company have to admit upfront the fee breakdown “before” they assign the original BPO? (For example, if they are going to charge a 30% referral fee and that the lender will only pay a total of X% commission)
I hope the lending institutions will soon realize that these practices by the third party REO companies and BPO mills greatly reduce the quality of agents that might otherwise be glad to help. Realtors should not be chosen based on a "low bid" basis as if we were all equal as a commodity!
Submitted by:
Jim Paulson, CRS, GRI, EPRO, EcoBroker - Owner/Broker – Progressive Realty Corporation
http://www.Progressive-Realty.info
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