As a real estate investor, you're always looking for new investment opportunities, monitoring market trends, and managing your existing properties. But even with a powerful marketing suite and lead generation software, it can be tough to keep track of everything. That's where a virtual assistant (VA) in real estate comes in.
A real estate virtual assistant (VA) can play a pivotal role in running and growing your real estate investing business by taking on a number of activities that would otherwise absorb your time and energy.
This frees you up to close deals, network, and be present at networking events at the face of your business.
Real Estate Virtual Assistants Need Training
When you hire a VA for real estate, they are essentially your employee. And just like other employees, it is critically important to train your VA.
Even if you go with an agency like REVA Global, that specializes in providing real estate virtual assistants, you still have to take the time to go through your business in detail with them.
Let them shadow you on calls so they can get a feel for how you communicate, and what the brand image is that you’re projecting. Even if your virtual real estate assistant won’t be cold calling or doing any direct marketing, you still want that brand cohesion. You want your VA to be an extension of your company, and if you’re a small operation - that means an extension of you.
Duties A Real Estate Virtual Assistant Can Take Over
1. Property Research
Virtual assistants for real estate can help you identify potential investment possibilities by conducting property research, assessing market trends, and identifying viable deals. This can entail looking for properties for sale or rent, comparing prices and features, and researching market circumstances to decide the ideal time to invest.
If your operation is larger, a VA can also help examine properties' financials, such as rent roll, occupancy rate, and NOI, to determine the potential return on investment. They can also help you stay on top of any changes in zoning or rules that may effect your investments.
Keep in mind - if you’re going to task a virtual real estate assistant with these duties, you have to make sure you educate them on the fundamentals of how to invest in real estate.
Without this base, they’re liable to do more harm than good.
2. Marketing
A VA can help you promote your properties and business by creating and distributing marketing materials, managing your social media accounts, and building a strong online presence that helps you grow your reputation in the investing community.
Virtual assistants a creative background can create flyers and brochures, along with design and manage your website. There are also real virtual real estate assistants with experience in creating and scheduling social media posts, something that can be extremely time-consuming.
Finally - once you’ve laid out your marketing strategy and outlined steps to execute on that, you can offload that grunt work onto your VA.
3. Administrative Tasks
A real estate virtual assistant can assist you with a number of administrative activities that most consider drudgery. This includes things like making appointments, returning phone calls, and managing your email inbox.
A virtual assistant can also assist you with document management tasks such as creating, revising, and filing crucial papers. This helps you keep your firm structured and guarantees that you have quick and easy access to critical information.
There’s nothing worse than blowing a sale because you aren’t organized.
4. Financial Management
A virtual assistant can assist with financial management duties such as budget creation and monitoring, spending tracking, and invoice generation and even bookkeeping (although, you’ll definitely want to run through the books with an accountant before tax time).
With the right training they can assist you in developing financial reports, tracking your income and expenses, and developing financial estimates.
Arm them with software like Quickbooks and, with the proper training, they’ll be able to take a huge weight off your shoulders.
5. Property Management
A real estate virtual assistant can assist you with property management by arranging repairs and upkeep, maintaining tenant relations, and managing rent collection. They can help with repair scheduling and coordination, tenant communication management, and rent collection.
A VA can also help you create and enforce lease agreements, as well as ensure compliance with local and state laws and regulations.
By offloading these tasks to a VA, you'll be able to focus on identifying new investment opportunities and monitoring market trends.
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Keys To Working With Virtual Real Estate Assistants
1. Communication
Clear and constant communication is one of the most important aspects of working effectively with a real estate virtual assistant. It is critical to set clear expectations and guidelines for your VA, as well as to provide precise instructions and any relevant information. Regular check-ins and updates will help to ensure that the VA stays on track and that any issues or concerns are handled as soon as possible.
Treat your VA like an employee - they should never have to guess whether or not something is in scope and on brand.
2. Proper Training
A properly trained real estate virtual assistant is like an extension of you. You want them to know the in’s and out’s of your business, how you operate, and what they’re expected to do to succeed.
They cannot succeed without proper training. And if your VA messes up - take ownership of that. YOU can provide better training and clearer instructions so that your VA doesn’t mess up again.
3. Remote Flexibility
Real estate virtual assistants can operate remotely, giving them greater scheduling and communication flexibility. As an investor, you may need to work with a virtual assistant in another time zone or during non-standard business hours. Being open to new working arrangements, such as flexible hours or virtual meetings, can help supercharge productivity.
4. Technology
By definition, a real estate virtual assistant relies on technology to get their work done, so having the required tools and resources is essential.
Before expecting them to perform any work - make sure they have a laptop that can handle your needs, along with any software required. Just like a regular employee - you can’t expect real estate virtual assistants to absorb the cost of any programs or software you require - that a business expense, and that’s on you.
Real Estate Virtual Assistants: FAQs
1. How much do real estate virtual assistants cost?
For a foreign-based virtual real estate assistant, you can expect to pay anywhere from $6 - $12/hour, based on experience and skills required.
For US-based virtual assistants, you can expect to pay anywhere between $18 - $35/hour.
Keep in mind - this cost varies based on required skills, experience and location. Just like on the job market, a virtual assistant that has deep knowledge of Photoshop and Quickbooks will cost more than one without that knowledge.
2. Where can I hire real estate virtual assistants?
You can find many VAs on Upwork who vary in cost and experience. With that said, we’re huge proponents of using REVA Global’s VAs as they’re prompt, professional, experienced and fluent in English.
3. Do real estate virtual assistants need to be licensed?
No. If your virtual VA isn't working on law or other highly specialized activities, virtual real estate assistants don’t need to be licensed.
4. Where are virtual real estate assistants located?
VAs can be US-based or offshore, which are typically located in The Philippines and India.
Real estate virtual assistants allow investors to concentrate on the most important aspects of their business while delegating day-to-day duties to professionals. They are an invaluable tool to any company wanting to expand and diversify its portfolio.
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