HOW TO BECOME AN REO AGENT AND GET REO LISTINGS
Breaking Into the Hottest Business Category in Real Estate Today
REO (Real Estate Owned) properties are currently the biggest-selling home category in America. And that’s a situation that’s not about to change soon.
For those of you who don’t know what REOs are all about, when a property goes through a foreclosure process, usually the financial institution that backed the mortgage ends up owning the home. That REO Seller then has the property cleaned-up, secured, repaired and put back on the market as an REO listing.
Most REO Sellers don’t really want to be in the home-selling business. They rely on professional REO agents and brokers to take care of all the groundwork. REO homes, of course, are very attractive to buyers because they are traditionally priced much lower than comparable homes being sold by the actual owners. Banks and asset managers are anxious to get REO homes off their books and close out the unpaid mortgage.
That’s why there’s an amazing opportunity for those interested in making money in the REO industry. While job losses continue to mount in America and traditional occupations suffer, the REO business is still booming and is likely to be for some time.
At the moment, delinquencies on mortgages still outnumber the amount of home loans being approved. It’s estimated that one out of four Americans are behind on their mortgages. And it’s also a fact that most first-time home buyers are buying REO homes.
The key to how to become an REO agent is to understand how to work with these REO Sellers. It’s a very different dynamic than working with “normal” real estate transactions, as you’re not dealing with the actual home owners. Rather, you’re working with large companies, many of them not even located in the same state as the REO property in question.
The main challenge is building up a professional and reputable image with these companies. Generally, the best way to build that relationship is to perform what are called BPO’s (Broker Price Opinion) on REO homes – it’s basically deciding on a sales value for an REO property. It’s not an official appraisal, and the REO Seller will usually gather a few on the same property to get a consensus.
A great resource for getting inside the REO arena is ASREOS, the National Association of REO Specialists, which offers all kinds of benefits to its membership, consisting of both REO veterans and beginners to the business. In addition to providing invaluable REO training advice and essential tips on how to get REO listings, ASREOS, run by nationally-known REO expert Frank Patrick, offers its members the ability to post their online profile, searchable by zip code, which can be accessed by REO Sellers. ASREOS also features an exclusive database of financial institutions that control REO listings.
One of ASREOS’ most useful features is a members-only forum that allows REO professionals to trade inside secrets and tips to each other. Find out more by visiting www.ASREOS.com.
