This is the question that every broker wants to know the answer for.  There are many who are very successful in this line of business.  Many of them are happy to have all their bills taken care of with their BPO incomes.  Some of them have even made this a full time job earning money out of Broker Price Opinions.

Many of you may wonder if this really possible?!!

My answer is yes; with little efforts you can definitely make your Real Estate Broker license work for you.  But you must pursue the BPO business like any other venture, it really need genuine efforts to reach the level that you want.  I have listed out few of the important things to do get consistent and increased work volumes on a daily basis.

Sign up with only few good companies: Signing up with companies who have the reputation of giving consistent work; and who pay regularly without any issues and delays. There are many blogs and websites who are selling BPO Company lists for nominal fees.  But you cannot afford to simply sign up for these companies and passively hope to hear back from them.  Though this is your first step and that is the only way to start.  One needs to proactively pursue the business out of these companies.  Establishing relationships with these companies will supply you an endless stream of revenue as long as you stay in the business.  We have made Broker Price Opinions our bread and butter and we have managed to survive over a decade, even after feeding a team of 50 full time agents helping us. Signing up with few companies will help you focus on each one of them.  Be cautious about companies which are quick to give you loads of work but no money.  Keep your profiles up to date with latest License, W9 and E&O documents.  Keep updating or expanding your list of coverage area zip codes to increase chances of getting more work.  Never stick to a small geographic boundary; with the help of technology you can make full utilization of your broker’s license.

Follow up on a daily basis: Follow up is the key, make it a habit to make friends within these BPO companies and approach them on a daily basis so that they know you by your name. They will remember you when they have work in your area.  You can just send one line email every day to all your BPO company contacts.  You can even set up automated emailing function which does this job for you on a daily basis and you don’t have to worry about this task.

Communicate without any delays and full honesty: Try to answer all your calls and emails from these companies without any delays.  You need to be honest with your delivery times; you can let them know if there is going to any delays.  It will help you to gain their trust.  Many of us try to fool them with lame excuses or by delaying the response until we are in a better position to answer.  But this is a bad strategy; they will pull back the orders if they don’t get a response on time.  Many of the brokers have lost their accounts due to this behavior.

Hire some help: Hiring some help really pays-off soon, you will remain a happy person. Hire photographers to take photos for you, train them about your requirements. Hire VAs to do the work for you.  There are many form fulfillment softwires as well. You can decide based on the amount of work and volumes to outsource the type of work.  How to hire a good Virtual Assistant and Photographers is another big topic I am going to write in my next article.  You should always review their work before sending the data to BPO companies until you are satisfied of its quality.  What they deliver for you is going to decide your future business.  So, keep an eye out.

Local market expertise: Try to include your local knowledge about the property and neighborhood on all your BPOs. None other than you can do this; your professional inputs are going to make a big difference.

Multiple revision requests for the same order: The best way to handle multiple revisions for an order is call up the reviewer to understand his/her requirements before attempting to fix the issue.  Also, try and understand their intention before resubmitting the order.  In many cases, they will be indicating you to increase or decrease your values.  Stick to your logic if you are satisfied with your work.

Client Rebuttals (revisions requests coming from the banks directly): Take care of all the Client rebuttals personally. Your VAs may not have the required expertise to answer these questions from the Banks.  You should be able to justify your work based on your local expertise.  If there is mistake on your part, you can admit it and earn an opportunity to correct them for you.  Because inappropriate answers can make your name added to their “DO NOT USE LIST” and you cannot get from that Client/Bank even you are registered with multiple servicing companies.

Deliver order back on time: This will help you get your scores up with these companies and puts you on top of their list.

Preferred Vendor: Many of the BPO companies will have their criteria for an Ideal BPO vendor, study their requirements and try to become one.  Deliver orders on time, Good communication, Quality of orders and Competitive fee will quality you for their preferred vendor status.  Preferred vendors get good volumes on a daily basis.

Auto Acceptance: Nowadays all BPO companies broadcast their orders to multiple agents unless you are a preferred vendor. Accepting the orders by looking at the broadcast emails has become humanly impossible in some areas due to high competition. Make use of technology here or hire someone to monitor such emails full time.  We at AbVin provide complimentary order acceptance service for our clients.

All these pointers may sound difficult, but with right kind of help, little bit of planning and organizing you can make a decent income out of Broker Price Opinions.

Here is the free list of Top 25 Broker Price Opinion Companies which actually give you regular work, you need not waste your time and money …

1. REALSuite / Altisource / Realtrans / Ocwen
2. Clear Capital
3. Xome Valuations / Assurant / E Mortgage Logic
4. Inside Valuation
5. LRES
6. Mainstreet Valuations
7. Equator
8. Goodman Dean
9. Asset Valuation Solutions (AVM)
10. Dispo Solutions / Summit valuations / Exceleras
11. Mark to Market
12. Computer Share / Specialized Asset Management (SAM)
13. RESNET
14. MCS / FARVV / Corelogic
15. Consolidated Analytics
16. ORSS / EquityPointe
17. iMortgage (now SINGLESOURCE)
18. Old Republic
19. Single Source
20. Meridian Asset Services
21. PCV Murcor
22. Residential Real Estate Review
23. XOME
24. Service Link / LSI / E Lenders
25. Proteck