How to Find a Virtual Assistant
If you need help doing all the mundane tasks real estate requires, it might be time for you to look into getting a real estate virtual assistant.
Find out how a real estate virtual assistant can support your business, typical virtual assistant tasks & how to hire a real estate administrative assistant.
As your real estate business grows, you will find yourself spending more time on administrative tasks, follow-up calls, and staying on top of an ever-complicated schedule. Eventually, you will reach a plateau. You know you need to bring on some help, but what is the best way to do it?
A real estate virtual assistant may be the answer you are looking for. A real estate assistant can make your business more efficient and organized by taking over mundane administrative tasks. Your valuable time will be freed up to dedicate to growing your business or simply enjoying a better work/life balance.
A virtual assistant or VA is an independent contractor or employee who handles support services and administrative tasks remotely. A VA can be an employee, independent contractor, or temporary employee and work full-time, part-time, or on an as-needed basis.
What does a virtual assistant do? It depends! There are many types of virtual assistants ranging from customer service and bookkeeping to social media management, data entry, and graphic design. A virtual real estate assistant has the specific experience necessary to support your business.
What is a VA in real estate? A virtual assistant for real estate helps with scheduling, office management, inbox management, answering phones, and providing other administrative support.
Now that you have a basic idea of what a VA is, what can a real estate assistant do? Real estate virtual assistants handle everything from general office management and answering the phone to managing your schedule and inbox, data entry and database management, and sending follow-up emails.
A real estate virtual assistant can be your right-hand man, giving you the support you need so you can focus on more important tasks that grow your business.
Before hiring an assistant in real estate, it’s important to consider the tasks you want to delegate. There are some tasks perfectly suited to a real estate administrative assistant and some duties that require a licensed real estate agent or someone with specialized experience.
Here are examples of virtual assistant duties your real estate VA can handle to help your office run smoothly and assist your entire real estate team.
A virtual assistant for real estate agents can take care of simple but time-consuming bookkeeping tasks that help you understand the financial health of your business and track important metrics, especially in a team setting.
The standard duties assigned to a virtual real estate assistant involve administrative support. Your VA can act like a virtual secretary or personal assistant for a single agent or an entire team. The typical virtual assistant job description includes:
Inbox triage and responding to emails (that do not involve transaction details and information they are not qualified to handle)
How much time do you spend on research each week? A real estate virtual assistant can help you stay on top of market conditions, prepare for meetings with clients, and give clients the most up-to-date information. Your VA can not only handle research for you but organize data in reports that are easy to read. Here are some common research points in which your real estate assistant can help.
While there may come a time when you want a dedicated team member for marketing your business with specialized experience, virtual real estate assistants can be excellent at staying on top of your marketing and branding efforts! If this is important to you, you’ll want to look for a VA with writing and/or design experience.
Managing databases and data entry probably take up a lot of your time, yet accurate databases are at the heart of your lead generation efforts. One of the most crucial ways in which a real estate personal assistant can help is handling your data entry and databases to make sure you are always working with accurate, up-to-date information.
Did you know a virtual assistant for real estate can be a valuable part of your sales team? Here are some virtual assistant duties that help you close more deals.
A successful real estate agent has a busy calendar. It’s easy to miss an important deadline or appointment without someone staying on top of your schedule.
Realtor assistants are helpful for finding the time you need to meet with a client and avoiding double bookings. Their virtual assistant responsibilities can also include tracking important events, tasks, and deadlines. These events may not require specific action or the agent’s presence and otherwise wouldn’t show up on their calendar.
For example, listing agents can benefit from a VA scheduling home showings to make sure sellers have time to vacate, prospective buyers have time for a walkthrough, and there are no overlapping showings. A VA in real estate can even handle booking and scheduling a listing photographer, cleaner, and home stager.
A virtual assistant for Realtors can handle almost any task within their ability to support your business. Here are examples of other duties you may include in your real estate assistant checklist, depending on their skillset.
Is it time to hire a virtual assistant? As you can see, there are many ways virtual assistants for real estate can help you grow your business and improve your work/life balance. A real estate virtual assistant is also a cost-effective solution with duties that are easy to tailor and change to fit your needs.
Follow these easy guidelines to get the most benefit from real estate virtual assistant services.
Before starting your search for virtual assistant real estate services, have a good understanding of the tasks and duties you want to assign them. If you’re struggling to decide what you should delegate, you may find it helpful to track how much time you currently spend on the tasks above.
Which tasks take up the most amount of time and can be done by someone else?
Don’t make the mistake of trying to assign too many duties to a single personal assistant. Not only will they be overwhelmed; they will also be ill-equipped to best handle the duties they are assigned. Try to focus on one or two areas above to manage or a range of similar tasks.
Make sure you are assigning tasks that can be performed by an unlicensed real estate assistant. NAR provides a helpful overview of state regulations for unlicensed real estate assistants. For instance, Georgia does not allow unlicensed assistants to make cold calls, but California allows assistants to make cold calls with some guidelines.
The next step is creating a virtual real estate assistant job description. This is a useful step even if you are hiring through a VA company because it clearly defines your expectations and helps you find the right person for the job. Your job description may include a real estate assistant checklist of duties you want your VA to perform.
As you prepare a job description, you can make sure you create clear procedures for each duty that are easy to follow. This will help your real estate assistant seamlessly become a part of your business.
With a good idea of the help you need, you’re ready to start the search for the real estate administrative assistant of your dreams.
You’ll find several options for hiring virtual assistants. The best option will depend on your budget and job description. Here are some questions to ask yourself to narrow your focus.
How much does a real estate virtual assistant cost? You may pay anywhere from $8 to $50+ per hour. Some companies charge a monthly fee instead with an average cost of around $1,500 per month for a full-time overseas VA.
There is no way to give you a general virtual assistant cost as it depends on whether you need a real estate assistant part-time or full-time, whether you go through an agency or hire an independent contractor, and whether you choose a US-based or overseas VA.
Once you know the virtual assistant tasks you want performed and have a good idea of a job description, you’ll be better able to estimate pricing and decide the best option to hire a virtual assistant.
Virtual real estate assistants are great for maximizing your productivity and handling time-consuming administrative tasks, but this role isn’t the best fit for everything. You should also know when it’s time to hire someone with specialized experience and knowledge.
Virtual real estate assistants and transaction coordinators are often confused with each other. While some VAs can and do perform general transaction coordination services, if you are specifically looking for transaction management, it’s best to hire a transaction coordinator (TC).
What is the difference between a transaction coordinator vs an assistant? A VA is more like a general assistant that performs a diverse range of tasks like managing your personal and work calendars, updating your CRM and MLS listings, and even scheduling social media posts. A transaction coordinator is a specialized role. A TC handles the administrative tasks and paperwork of real estate transactions. This includes coordinating communication between all interested parties, opening escrow, handling and reviewing paperwork, and managing deadlines.
Virtual assistants and transaction coordinators are separate, supportive members of your real estate team that perform different duties to accomplish the same goal: keeping your business in compliance, saving you time on administrative tasks, and helping your business grow.
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If you need help doing all the mundane tasks real estate requires, it might be time for you to look into getting a real estate virtual assistant.
Here, we will discuss how exactly virtual assistants can help real estate agents be more productive. Read on to find out how!
Virtual real estate transaction coordinators are specialists in transactions, that have become increasingly more popular in the real estate industry.