As a real estate professional, you know your time is best spent interacting with clients, scouting properties, and negotiating deals. But with so many administrative tasks, you might need help managing time for your other tasks. A real estate VA can take care of all the little tasks and save you time so that you can handle other important issues. In this article, we’ll cover what you need to know about RE virtual assistants, how they work, and where to find them.
What Are Real Estate Virtual Assistants?
A real estate virtual assistant provides administrative, clerical, and marketing support to realtors or real estate agents and companies from a home office space. The primary duties include lead generation, customer follow-up, appointment scheduling, listing coordination, transaction coordination, marketing assistance, and office administration.
The real estate VA is knowledgeable about the industry and current trends. They must be able to multitask and stay organized while working independently..
Hiring a real estate Virtual Assistant frees up your time to enjoy your personal life, and focus on your more immediate business tasks. If you are a realtor or real estate company looking for extra help but not ready to commit to a full-time employee, then a real estate VA is the perfect solution!
Types Of Real Estate VA’s
Depending on your specific needs, there are several types of real estate virtual assistants to choose from. Common types of real estate VAs are:
Administrative Realtor VAs
An administrative realtor VA ensures that all of the paperwork associated with a real estate transaction is completed correctly. This includes contracts, mortgage documents, and title searches.
Sales Real Estate VAs
A sales real estate virtual assistant can be a massive help to any real estate agent. In a world where more and more business is conducted online, it’s essential to have someone who can handle the administrative tasks that come with selling property.
Customer Service VA
Any business that provides excellent customer service survives. Your firm will last longer if you can keep your existing customers returning, no matter how many offers and cost reductions you run to attract new ones. Customer service VAs are responsible for handling the customer service aspects of your real estate business. This can include making phone calls, sending emails, handling customer complaints, and more.
Marketing Realtor VAs
Real estate is a very competitive industry, and it is important to have a good marketing strategy as a realtor. Marketing realtor VAs help you market your company by handling the marketing administrative tasks of your company. This can include social media management, graphic design, and content creation.
What Tasks Are Real Estate VAs Responsible For?
Following are the tasks which are often delegated to real estate virtual assistants:
Real Estate Research
A virtual assistant can save money by conducting in-depth research on the following:
- Pursuing and locating information on properties, such as their location, best characteristics, and amenities
- Examining pricing and market patterns in various markets through market research
- Examining the commercial plans of rivals
- Worldwide upcoming conferences on real estate
Back-Office Administrative Tasks
Real estate VAs are often responsible for several back-office administrative tasks. Some tasks they can be responsible for are:
Data Entry
This involves creating and maintaining accurate records of property listings, transactions, contacts, and more. This is an important task that helps keep the business organized and running smoothly.
Customer Service
This includes responding to inquiries from potential buyers, providing information about properties, and handling customer complaints. It is essential to provide excellent customer service to build a positive reputation for the business.
Appointment Scheduling
This can be time-consuming, but keeping the business running smoothly is essential. A virtual assistant can handle this task by scheduling appointments with buyers, sellers, contractors, and other professionals involved in the real estate industry.
Bookkeeping
Bookkeeping is another important task that a real estate virtual assistant can handle. This involves keeping track of finances, preparing invoices, and processing payments. It is essential to maintain accurate financial records to run a successful real estate business.
CRM Management
A CRM system helps you manage your customer relationships, providing an organized record of all interactions with potential and current clients. In the highly competitive world of real estate, it’s essential to keep track of your clients and their needs. A real estate VA can manage your CRM system and keep it up-to-date, helping you stay organized.
Scheduling
As a real estate agent, your time is precious. You frequently travel to see customers, see buildings, and attend open houses. Wasting time scheduling appointments and following up with leads is the last task you will want to do yourself. The VA can take care of this for you, freeing your time to focus on finding new clients and closing deals.
Lead Nurturing
Real estate is a competitive industry that takes a lot of work to stand out. A VA can help you with lead nurturing, providing helpful information and resources that keep your potential clients engaged and interested in your services. This can include blog posts on real estate trends to newsletters with tips for buying or selling property.
Transaction Coordinator
Once you’ve found a client, the VA can help by handling the transaction details. This includes ensuring that all parties are paid on time and following up to meet deadlines and conditions. A transaction coordinator can be a valuable asset to any real estate agent, helping streamline the transaction process and free up time for other tasks.
When hiring a transaction coordinator, it is important to choose someone who is highly organized and detail-oriented. The VA is beneficial as they are already trained and ready to jump into this important role and they cost less than a physical transaction coordinator.
Social Media Management
Social media management is essential to a successful real estate business, and a VA can help you stay on top of this fast-moving industry. A real estate virtual assistant can create and post content, interact with followers, monitor comments and messages, and provide valuable insights into your audience. Additionally, a real estate virtual assistant can help you develop and implement strategies to grow your social media following. This leads to more potential clients and an expanded network.
Benefits Of Hiring A Real Estate VA
A real estate VA can be highly beneficial for your company for several reasons. Some benefits of hiring a VA include:
VA’s Have Specific Expertise
A virtual assistant for real estate focuses on a specific industry and uses that expertise to aid you in standing out from the crowd. This can include marketing expertise, local knowledge of the market, or specialized training in specific tasks. This means that a real estate VA knows the ins and outs of their industry, and can give you expert assistance in whatever you need.
Boosted Productivity
Productivity leads to the success of any company or business, but it is hard to reach the targeted productivity. By taking care of routine tasks, such as scheduling appointments, bookkeeping, and CRM management, a VA allows you to focus on more important tasks that will help grow your business, and be more productive as a result. Additionally, the VA can provide valuable insights into your social media following and how to reach potential clients best.
Increased Efficiency
Productivity is closely followed by efficiency. By managing routine office tasks, which saves you time, a VA allows you to focus on tasks that are more important. You can start managing inventory concerns, sales funnels, and open houses by delegating time-consuming duties to virtual assistants, such as acquiring paperwork, maintaining property databases, and delivering follow-up and direct emails.
Scalability
Real estate VAs are an extra set of hands to complete tasks on schedule and without draining your payment method. As a result, you spend much less on recruitment and training expenses. Additionally, you can delegate job responsibilities to independent contractors as necessary. This offers the scalability that your business needs as it grows and evolves.
Flexibility
One of the key benefits of hiring a VA is that they offer flexibility. You don’t have to worry about committing to a full-time employee, as you can hire virtual assistants on an as-needed basis. This allows you to adjust your hiring depending on your current needs and workload.
Best Practices For Hiring Real Estate VAs
If you decide to hire a VA, there are certain practices you should follow, like:
Creating Clear Job Descriptions
Create a thorough job description so the employee knows the range of the work. Provide them with a clear understanding of their duties’ obligations and nature. Also, indicate the definition of success for each task and schedule the job implementation. This ensures that your employee knows what is expected from them.
Choosing Qualified VAs
The virtual assistant for real estate must have the plan to refer to and a quick tool they may use if unsure about a specific task. Before you assign a task to your VA, ensure they can adequately handle it and have the skills to complete the work without compromising.
Assigning Practical Deadlines
They must be fair and not burdensome. Proper planning and completing the activities on your to-do list at the top of your priorities are excellent ways to achieve the ideal balance. Also, provide a breakdown of the scope of work and specify which tasks are more urgent.
Giving Feedback
To help the assistant realize where they are excelling and where they are falling short, you must send out feedback daily. Additionally, you have to be able to answer their questions and any issues they may have with the current workflow.
Having Clear Communication
Consider creating a written agreement to protect yourself in any disputes related to project completion. Furthermore, you must have a regular line of communication with your team members. You can do this via email, text messages, or video conferencing tools.
Get Your Real Estate VA Consultation!
Our team of expert real estate assistants can handle all the little details of your business. You can spend more time using your expertise to better your business and handle selling and buying property decisions. We’re here to help you succeed, so contact Extend Your Team today to get started!