REO is Coming, Will You Be Ready?

In 1986 when I became a Georgia Realtor, I did not plan on being a REO Agent. My career path was in property management and I worked part time only while I worked full time in multi-family apartment management. One of my very first Buyer clients which was personal friends called one day and wanted info on a local bank owned property in our area. Back then there were no outsourcing companies and you dealt with the president of the bank one on one. I wrote the offer, took it to my Broker for review, which was my first offer, I will never forget that moment, the property was listed at $150K and my buyer offered only 75K. My Broker shook his head with a frown on his face and somewhat scolded me and said “the bank will not accept that amount.” Two days later my Broker called me and said, “ I cannot believe this but the bank accepted your buyers offer! Thus, my REO career path evolved with that first sale. Some of you may remember the old E.F. Hutton Commercials that went "When E.F. Hutton talks people listen", well that's how it was every time I mentioned I sold a Foreclosure. people came out of the woodwork and not much has changed since 1986!

 I continued working as a part time agent, became a Broker in 1989 and officially opened my own brokerage in 1993 while I continued to work full time in property management, a career I loved. In January of 2002 the announcement was made that that my employer since 1989, John Williams, Founder of Post Properties, was voted out of his public company by the BOD. Post was an amazing company and John was wonderful to his employees but I knew the company would never be the same without John just based on the changes since he took the company public. John always said going public was the biggest mistake he ever made. I knew at that moment it was time for me to be my own boss thus a new path in real estate began a journey that I never imagined! I opened my own Boutique Real Estate Company April 1, 2002 and what a ride! 

Just a few months after I opened my company a buyer contacted me wanting information on a VA Foreclosure. I immediately contacted the VA and signed up to be an authorized agent to show and sell their foreclosures. Back then VA as well as HUD didn’t list their properties with an agent, you signed up, went thru their training course and was then authorized to sell their REO. I sold many VA and HUD properties. It was VA, HUD and an appraiser friend that lead me to signing up with BPO companies. Next thing I knew I was doing BPO reports like crazy which was a good thing which you will see why later. Doing BPO’s was helping me learn a lot about REO and one thing lead to another such as becoming a member of the NRBA, National REO Brokers Association, which I was a member of from 2005 till 2014. In 2004 we saw the end of companies like VA and HUD managing their own REO and that’s when I learned the word Outsourcing. Ocwen won the VA Contract and I instantly overnight became an official REO Listing Broker with Ocwen which became my best and largest REO Client. I will never forget how excited I was when I received my approval letter that I was accepted into NRBA and even more excited that it was just in time to attend their Career Conference and The Bob Shelton BPO Boot Camp in Las Vegas January of 2006. 2 days before I flew out to Vegas, I received 17 Ocwen Listings in 1 day, OMG I was crying with joy and crying with panic on how in the world will I get 17 inspections completed and the reports submitted before I left for my very first REO Conference! Thank goodness for a great office staff and friends, 17 inspections, 17 reports, about a dozen locks changed and several Cash for Keys completed! Off I flew to Vegas to attend another life changer event with my NRBA Family! If it had not been for one of my BPO Clients telling me about NRBA and a buyer out of the blue wanting info on a VA REO I can’t imagine where my career path may have taken me but I know everything happens for a reason and fate placed me right where I needed to be. I thank God for giving me the strength and temperament to stay focused in an even more fast paced work environment, for the love of my job and for all the income I have earned continuing to work for my BPO Clients! It has been the BPO income that carried me through the very slow almost non-existent era when REO listings were few and far in between. I’m thankful I remained loyal to my BPO Clients and the income that carried me through some very slow times so now you know the rest of my story! I am here to say BPO is booming just like the early 2000’s which means REO is Coming, Will you be Ready? Trust me it pays to be loyal to the BPO little guys because they hold the key to the REO Vault!   

Well we’ve come a long way baby in 18 years of REO/BPO. Things have changed especially in BPO. As we all know 18 years ago most BPO Clients did not have Confidentiality Agreements and YES, a lot of us did have husbands, children or our Realtor/Agents that went out and took photos for us while we sat in our offices doing our reports! But 18 years later the BPO companies have grown and specific rules have been put in place known as Confidentiality Agreements. These agreements are now in place, very specific and any Realtor/Agent wanting to remain on board with that BPO Client has to sign that agreement in order to be assigned any BPO Orders. Thus, this paragraph is dedicated to Realtors/Agents that may be thinking about hiring a BPO Virtual Assistant. I hope this helps the BPO Virtual Assistants understand why we can’t use them to do a BPO assigned to our real estate companies!

Realtors/Agents are bound by confidentiality agreements with our BPO Clients that explicitly state we cannot outsource our orders! If you do not know the rules in our confidentiality agreements here they are:

1.   Realtors/Agents sign Confidentiality Agreements with all BPO Clients.

2.   Agreements state Realtors/Agents cannot share any information in the assigned BPO Order.

3.   Agreements state the Realtor/Agent assigned the BPO is the only person that can complete    the BPO report.

4.   Realtors/Agents cannot OUTSOURCE our BPO Orders to ANYONE!

5.   Confidentiality Agreements state if we, the Realtor/Agent, breaks our confidentiality agreement we will be fired and reported to our local real estate commission for disciplinary action.

Bottom line, being ad REO Agent comes with a lot of responsibility. Realtors/Agents cannot jeopardize their income and integrity breaking any of our Code of Ethics Rules as well as Fiduciary Obligations to our clients and this includes outsourcing BPO Orders! And YES, I make good money completing BPO Reports which carried me through the down time of REO Listings. Well it’s coming again, the writing is on the wall, all the signs are in place, history repeats itself, tons of BPO request coming in like wildfires and REO is Coming, Will You Be Ready, that is a Question for another day! Stay tuned Folks!

Thank you, LinkedIn Members, for taking time to read my article. Check out my BPO Boot Camp CE Course at NationalSocietyUniversity.com and my REO organization at NSFRA.com (National Society of Female REO Agents).

#reoiscoming  #willyoubeready