San Diego-based Taza Corp. is providing new software directly to asset management companies in order to help clients cut out the middleman and directly run their own BPOs through its network of agents.
Independent investors, BPO mill brokers and others can benefit from TAZA360, which offers an online platform to process evaluations for depressed real estate.
Quite often, BPO mills have their own proprietary software, and they don’t allow the asset manager to have access because it cuts out their profit, according to partner Lawrence Duffin.
“We have many different revenue models, so we are able to offer this product to the asset companies and really cut out the middle man profit chain. There’s a lot of life left in the asset cycle. There are many more items that happen to a property once its purchased or approved or under a listing agreement.”
He believes the broker and asset management company can have a mutually benefiting relationship.
“It doesn’t have to be a profit model based solely upon the BPO. When the broker gets the property they get the listing agreement. They can make enough money on that side of it to not have to charge the asset company upfront for a BPO or the agents to join a specific network to perform them.”
TAZA360 enables users an “affordable, fast and easy” virtual portal to manage, market, track expenses and closing processes of residential and commercial developments, all in-house. It is fully compatible with the other software programs the company offers, TAZAREO and TAZAVOX.
“There is a built-in workflow that these BPOs or CMAs or evaluations go through within the system. Through the assignment process, there are about 10 different statuses. As any party takes a certain action, the system will move the CMA (comparative market analysis) through the automated workflow and notify each party of the next step they have to take,” Duffin said.
“As soon as the agent starts working on it, I am instantly notified and I can watch them complete it real time. For the expense portion, it’s also wrapped up inside the status or automation within the system…The agents read what the asset manager is offering and they choose whether or not they want to accept it or decline it. If they accept it, the system will stamp and track the expense value all the way through its life cycle.”
Currently, faxing, word documents, endless e-mails and phone calls are the way everyone communities about properties. This is time consuming, and obsolete in an industry that requires fast, up-to-the-minute updates, he says.
Duffin describes a new client that has a team of 20 people that manage just the CMAs or broker price opinions. Their volume is around 1,000 a week.
“To give you an idea of the man-hours directly related to that with the systems ability, we were able to assign 500 yesterday by just clicking a button and letting the system do the automation. They are already being completed and tracked.”
With a single click, clients can figure out their running ROI on a single note or an entire portfolio, all the way down to the offer automation that happens between the listing agent and the buyer’s agent to liquidate and sell these properties, adds partner Sam Metri.
“These activities happen throughout the process from changing a light bulb and the costs of that and the labor involved. On the back end, there is the vendor involvement. You need someone to go fix the pool and maintain it every month. You involve your agent to market these properties and start taking offers. All of that is tracked.”
