NFSTI REO/BPO Networking & Certification

BPO UNIVERSITY LAUNCHES FIRST CE CREDIT APPROVED COURSE!

This week the BPO University, based in Bellingham, WA, announced that it will host its first of many continuing education-approved BPO Course. This is a giant step for the company and for real estate agents alike. Historically BPO courses were expensive, somewhat haphazard, and offered nothing in the way of education credits which are mandatory in every state in order to keep licenses active. This all changed thanks to the arduous efforts of one woman - Nicole Ocean.

In 2006 Nicole recognized the need for higher learning in the BPO (Broker Price Opinion) sector of real estate - a niche' that was essential to the HELOC (Home Equity Line of Credit), REFI (Re-finance), and REO (foreclosure) businesses to mention a few. This skill provided a benefit that typically doubled a real estate agent's income-making potential by simultaneously offering a paid service (completing the BPO for the client) as well as the potential for listing a property which the agent assisted in determining its value through the BPO process. This niche' was fairly unknown at the time that Nicole began utilizing another hidden talent - eBook publishing - which quickly changed during the sub-prime mortgage meltdown of Wall Street that was felt around the globe.

Fast-forward 4 years and Nicole is paving the way for new education, technology, and opportunity across the country. Again, Nicole has selflessly placed endless hours of effort into convincing the Washington state board that her class was suitable for CE credit to Washington licensed real estate agents. The course takes BPO to new heights providing insight into the business which cannot be found through a mere Google search.

With all of the fly-by-night web-based companies popping up in this industry it becomes all the more important in a tight economy to know you're trusting your investment with a reputable company as well as investing in your business wisely. ROI (Return on Investment) is a very popular term and notion in the current real estate market and the BPO University is fully aware of this fact.

WARNING: Do not attend this course unless you are committed to your business and expect to put forth every effort to internalize and execute what is being taught.

Registration Information

I have a friend and colleague who always finds himself in the middle of cutting edge technology and projects that seem to redefine the REO and related industries. Over the past few months he's been telling me about a project that he's helping out with that will "revolutionize how BPO's are done." This is something that perked my ears since I love geeky tech stuff AND have always thought that the entire BPO/REO side of real estate needed a complete overhaul to help get caught up to the current tech-savvy era.

Fast forward a few months to this past week. My email starts blowing up with messages from my friend asking for all kinds of help with different projects he's working on. He was clearly reaching out to a sort of "sub culture" of REO addicts that exists among you who merely like to do things to impact the industry without gaining recognition or monatary gain. There's a strange comraderie among these people, and they seem to find each other whether it's at conferences or online, and then stick together. Anyway, I digress....the fact is something was causing the sonar to start pinging and that meant one thing - REO action was picking up.

I've been given the task of informing the underworld of social media and social networking of the approaching events (assignments) and the name of this "Project X" company. The company name is Realty Pilot. It's lead engineer is Christian Broadwell and having met him on a couple of occassions I can say that he's nothing short of genius. He's got a track record that would make most of us pale in comparison and a team that spans over several continents. The Realty Pilot team has been working on this project for years (literally) now and its mission is simple: Streamline and unify the default servicing industry. A task that the REO "sub culture" has dreamed about and theorized over Bud Light for years.

So, without further hesitation, I urge you to go start checking them out before the news hits main stream media sources. By then it'll be old news and you'll be grouped in with the status quo. They do offer a free trial startup so don't worry about plunking down money for something you don't yet understand.

Click the image below to go straight to the Realty Pilot Home Page:

Yeah, I know...it's a bold statement (referring to the title), but I truly believe it to be true and almost obvious. If you take a good, hard look at the numbers, which speak larger volumes than anything else, it becomes clear that anyone in the REO biz will be hard at work this year.

Part of me can't help but make mention right here about the individuals (REO agents, you know who you are) who complained about their loss of business by adding more REO agents over the last couple of years. Do you really think you could have handled this many REO's? Come on.

OK, now that I got that off my chest, back to the facts. With 2009 projected to have the largest number of defaults and foreclosure filings in US history our nation stares at the largest dependency on accurate BPO's than ever before. In Q2 '08 for instance, there were approximately 740K foreclosure filings (residential real estate only). If you consider that on average each of these properties needs a minimum of 1 BPO at approximately $50 each (a very conservative estimate) then you're looking at $37,000,000 worth of BPO business that was distributed. Now if you add in the other 3 quarters this number jumps to $148,000,000 worth of BPO business that needed completed in 2008.

Now let's look at REO listings. One thing to consider before accounting for the following numbers is that not every property closed, and not every closing was for the full amount listed. That's why looking at ave sales price and number of closings paints a more accurate picture than ave list price and total listings.

Nonetheless, this should give us a pretty good idea of what's out there since most properties will eventually close over time (which indicates that the REO agents need to view this business as long-term). Here are the numbers according to RealtyTrac in 08:

National Stats 2008:

New Foreclosure Filings: 3,177,429

Foreclosure Sales: 759,020

Ave Sales Price: $161,755

This information indicates that there was $12,277,580,100 in REO sales last year alone (Foreclosure Sales * Ave Sales Price). Were you complaining about a shortage in sales by any chance? Hmmm....Anyways, let's move on. If you consider an arbitrary number for a commission average on the listing side of a transaction of 1.5% (a number to help compensate for expenses such as overhead, referral fees, memberships, etc.) then we're looking at a total REO listing agent compensation on a national level of approximately $184,163,701.50 (Total REO sales price * 1.5%). That's a lot of dough. And my prediction - it's going to jump up even higher in 2009.

Some other facts worth noting are that interest rates have been reduced allowing for sales to increase, individuals' credit scores are on the mend after a couple years of taking a beating, listing prices have been coming closer to realistic prices after a few years of inflated list prices, and we have not yet received any indication that bail out money will be used for homeowners (which could prevent the number of foreclosure filings from jumping drastically).

Are you "in the know" of REO yet?