I have been doing Broker Price Opinion’s (BPO’s) full-time for 2 years, since September 2006 in fact. I see myself as a non-traditional Realtor because most agents don’t do BPO’s and instead do real estate sales full-time and some may need to have a part-time job on the side for when sales are slow.
In January 2007, I wrote an instructional manual (an eBook) on Broker Price Opinions that is entitled, “All You Ever Wanted to Know About Broker Price Opinions.” I’ve been blessed able to help over 1,700 other real estate professionals all across America in the last year and a half.
Because of this experience I decided to branch out and do BPO training and consulting work alongside of doing BPO work myself. I’ve been offering my training services on BPO’s and have had some heartfelt conversations with fellow BPO Agents.
During my phone conversations with these various BPO Agents I seem to pick up on an underlying theme and topic that keeps coming up and so I wanted to address it here and see what you think.
People were asking me, “Is it Really Getting Harder to Break Into the Broker Price Opinion Business?” I am not afraid to answer this question and tell them my thoughts and perspective on how I feel that the a lot of real estate professionals have been jumping on the BPO Wave these last few years. Who would blame them? It is a wonderful niche market within real estate and a lot agents and brokers who have hit the wave at just the right time are now ‘hangin ten’ and enjoying the swell of REO business that they have worked so hard to get.
I feel that there are still many people wanting to get into the business and have just found out about it! I don’t want to discourage any of these people and say that there is no real opportunity for them any more because they missed the wave as it was cresting. This just isn’t true!
There are many new BPO Agents that are just now getting into the BPO and REO business and are able to still be very successful! Especially in market areas where is not a huge saturation of BPO and REO Agents. I myself live in an area where the typical BPO/REO Agent is an older agent that has been in the real estate business for 10-20 years. They’ve paid their dues, seen a few cycles and simply just put in a lot of hard work and dedication into their business. Anyone that is going to be successful (no matter what type of business they are in) will have to do the same!
The biggest encouragement and advice that I can give to people wanting to get into the BPO business right now is three fold.
1.) Do your research and educate yourself. (Learn as much as possible about BPO’s and the business, either from going to conferences, buying material on the internet, joining forums or going to seminars)
2.) Put in 100% effort and commitment to make sure you succeed as a BPO/REO Agent.
3.) Simply give it your best shot, take a risk and see what happens! “You will never know what your future holds if you are hesitant and cannot take that first step towards building your tomorrow!” (Nicole Ocean)
What are your thoughts?
