Hiring REO Agents: What Asset Management Companies Look For.

Dearborn, Mich. -- Finding the right agents to work for REO departments can often be a difficult task, especially as business continues to pick up for many asset managers across the country.

New hires must often go through extensive training, most notably for valuations, said Mike Ayoub, an REO specialist from Re/Max Team 2000 in Dearborn, Mich., which is a full-service asset management/disposition company.

Some banks prefer to use third party service companies to maintain the property - to rekey, take possession of the home, cut the grass, and do the trash out. If the bank doesn't go to a service company, an experienced contractor will be used.

The REO business is a constant learning experience, even for REO managers and agents, he observes. Every week managers and agents are trading information multiple times. They communicate about property valuations, BPOs, status reports on how to move properties that may have become stale listings.

Ed H. Park, an REO specialist with Re/Max Hancock Park in Los Angeles, has been working in the REO industry for 21 years. He is a firm believer in forming relationships with clients in order to get repeat clientele.

When it's time to recruit new staff, a lot of times he has to re-teach members of the REO department about appraisals. "We have one of the hardest areas of the United States when it comes to appraisals. My marketing area is right next to Beverly Hills and Hancock Park and you can't do a simple straight line," he said.

"You have to curve the appraisal and figure out if it's a drive-by and how much interior improvement has been done. On the full interior evaluation, since I have been rehabbing and building, we find out exactly how much has been spent on this. For one house, it was 4,000 square feet and sold for $1.5 million and an adjacent home sold for $3 million, because almost a $1 million was spent on interior. On average, a good estimate remodel includes taking the property down to the bare wood starts."