Broker Price Opinions? - BPO's

[George Hatch]

There's no need to record your conversations. If you always play it straight a lot of those phone calls will be pretty brief and you'll never hear from those individuals again. Water seeks its own level.

Really, you don't want a long term relationship with a client who has flexible mores. A client who will allow or encourage you to lie on an appraisal is also telling lies everywhere else in their program, from credit reports to income verifications. This is the same type of client who will - when caught - throw you under the bus for doing the very thing they demanded of you. This type of client will never be loyal, they'll never stick up for you and they'll always be pushing for you to commit greater and greater misconduct.

You're known by the company you keep, and doing work for funky clients tags you as a funky appraiser, even if your work isn't funky. Client management is part of the appraiser-client relationship, and sometimes client management means firing a bad client and replacing them with a better client. It also means clearly defining where lie your boundaries and consistently defending those boundaries against incursions, both great and small. Good fences make good neighbors.

 

[JJohnson1985]

There's no need to record your conversations. If you always play it straight a lot of those phone calls will be pretty brief and you'll never hear from those individuals again. Water seeks its own level.

Really, you don't want a long term relationship with a client who has flexible mores. A client who will allow or encourage you to lie on an appraisal is also telling lies everywhere else in their program, from credit reports to income verifications. This is the same type of client who will - when caught - throw you under the bus for doing the very thing they demanded of you. This type of client will never be loyal, they'll never stick up for you and they'll always be pushing for you to commit greater and greater misconduct.

You're known by the company you keep, and doing work for funky clients tags you as a funky appraiser, even if your work isn't funky. Client management is part of the appraiser-client relationship, and sometimes client management means firing a bad client and replacing them with a better client. It also means clearly defining where lie your boundaries and consistently defending those boundaries against incursions, both great and small. Good fences make good neighbors.

Yeah I've got that feeling from just reading post in here, I would not work with shady people who will, not just can, but will bring you down with them. My thinking is though to not just ignore them and not associate with them but try to get them out of the business all together. Try to do my part in making this business a better place for all :new_bigcrowd:

come-BY-YA

 

[Tru Red]

BPO's are paying my bills

Sad fact is, I am doing anywhere from 3 to 10 BPO's per week, and if it were not for them (BPO's), my power would be turned off. I only get a small % of the appraisal fees I perform, most of it goes to my supervisor that signs them. I get 100% of my BPO fee's, which are typically anywhere from $35 to $75 for about 2 hours of work. I'm guessing that when I finally obtain my AL license and can perform single family appraisals and actually get the money for myself for the work I perform, I may not do BPO's (or as many of them).

 

[George Hatch]

Assuming these BPOs are being performed for other-than-brokerage activites, like asset management or deminimus loans....

Just because the top of the report says "Broker Price Opinion" it does not relieve the individual of the professional responsibility to adhere to our professional standards. If you're rendering an opinion of value and you're expected to do so in an impartial and unbiased manner, it's an appraisal regardless of the nomenclature being used. Playing word games doesn't justify performing substandard work.

You can still build a BPO workproduct that conforms to USPAP, even if the client doesn't require you to conform to USPAP. It is especially important for a dual license professional (who holds both an appraisal license of any type as well as a realty license of any type) to adhere to the professional standards pertaining to both licenses, depending on which is applicable for that activity.

Simply put, if you're not adhering to professional standards you cannot consider yourself to be an upstanding member of that profession.

If I'm not mistaken, the National Association of Realtors requires adherence to USPAP when applicable.

I would say it's okay for an appraiser to do BPO's for other than brokerage purposes, so long as they recognize it as an appraisal assignment when it fits that definition and conforms to USPAP while doing them. USPAP compliance is not that hard.

 

[GENTEEL]

Really, you don't want a long term relationship with a client who has flexible mores. A client who will allow or encourage you to lie on an appraisal is also telling lies everywhere else in their program, from credit reports to income verifications. This is the same type of client who will - when caught - throw you under the bus for doing the very thing they demanded of you. This type of client will never be loyal, they'll never stick up for you and they'll always be pushing for you to commit greater and greater misconduct.

You're known by the company you keep, and doing work for funky clients tags you as a funky appraiser, even if your work isn't funky. Client management is part of the appraiser-client relationship, and sometimes client management means firing a bad client and replacing them with a better client. It also means clearly defining where lie your boundaries and consistently defending those boundaries against incursions, both great and small. Good fences make good neighbors.

Good advice, George. I have never submitted to corrupt clients. In fact, I lost one good friend (an MB/Realtor) about two years ago who kept insisting into malpractices and told me that everyone does it once in a while and that this whole business is in itself a corrupt one. He had also told me that I am not to worry for he shall take care of any problems should they arise. Btw, I was hired as an assistant processor as well. I never budged and parted company.

Today and very surprisingly, he is much bigger and now has a Century21 franchise. Hoping to earn his business, I visited him and his colleagues about a month ago and after presenting myself professionally and having general conversation with him and his colleagues about Real Estate/Appraisal markets, he showed less interest and never returned my calls on follow-ups on two occasions. I cared less and moved on.