Our Simple Step By Step BPO Guide

A Step By Step BPO Guide

Step By Step BPO GuideSo we have been doing this for a long time now.  Its almost 5 years ago that we created our simple BPO filling software that allows you to easily enter the information and generate a pretty BPO form directly from your computer.  We actually created this software for ourselves as we were practicing agents at the time and were doing a lot of BPO work.  Many of the companies would send word documents or other pdf forms and we needed a quicker way to be able to fill them out and more importantly not have to start from scratch each time.  We created the BPO software and used it internally for a long time until we realized that other people may be interested.  We released the software and to our surprise we have overwhelming response.  People loved it but even more shocking was the amount of people just getting started.  We kept getting asked for a step by step BPO guide.  People wanted something that walked them through the process of generating a BPO.  They wanted the details of how to do a bpo.  So we actually wrote and entire book on it that you can get here.

However you may not want to spend any money and you want the streamlined Step By Step BPO Guide so here we go.

Step 1 Obtain Subject Info – Step By Step BPO Guide

The first step in completing your BPO is gathering the information about the subject.  You can generally obtain all the subject information about the property from the MLS or tax records and property appraisers site.  Gathering all of this information ahead of time will make completing the subject information that much easier.  Remember that a lot of the information about the subject is actually generalized information about the market and the neighborhood.  You will want to gather all the information you can about the property ahead of time.  Remember to follow along step by step.

Step 2 Pull Comps – Step By Step BPO Guide

One of the most important steps of the step by step BPO guide is pulling comparable properties.  Almost all BPOs require you to show 3 comparable sold properties and 3 comparable listed properties.  These are referred to as comparables.  These properties should be as close to the subject property as possible in every form.  Bed/Bath counts, square footage, location, view etc.  You also will want to search for properties that are closest to the subject property.  Start your search with exact matching criteria and then loosen your search requirements if you are unable to find results. For a more detailed breakdown of how to pull comps you can view this post.

Step 3 Make Adjustments – Step By Step BPO Guide

Now that you have your comparable properties, the next part of your step to step bpo guide is to make adjustments to the values of these properties.  Making adjustments requires adding or subtracting amounts of money to the comparable properties to make them even to the subject.  You have heard the expression of comparing apples to apples.  If your subject property has a basement but the comparable does not, clearly the comparable is inferior.  You would need to add some money to the sale price or list price of the comparable to make it equivalent to the subject.  You can use the following Acronyms to help and remember you are always making price adjustments to the comparables and not the subject.

CIA – Comparable Inferior Add

CBS – Comparable Superior Subtract

Step 4 Summarize – Step By Step BPO Guide

The last step of our streamlined step by step BPO guide is to summarize your information.  Remember that the reader of your BPO report is located far away and may have never seen the property.  You need to paint an appropriate picture for them of the area, the subject property, the competition and any other factors that may not be easily visible from a far.  You are the real estate professional and summarizing all of the data to come up with a final value is your expertise.  Make sure you can defend your value with the data and don’t be afraid to stand by your number.  If you have a gut feeling that the price should be x then make sure your data supports it.

Our Detailed Step By Step BPO Guide

If you are looking for a more comprehensive Step By Step BPO Guide where we actually discuss every section and in depth how to complete a BPO then we recommend you take a look at our Complete Guide to BPOs.  As an added benefit we provide you with a free list of over 250 BPO companies who may have work to give.