Let’s review some basics about virtual assistant services.  Generally, a virtual assistant (VA) is normally an independent contractor who provides services to one or more business clients from a remote location.  Specifically, as related to the real estate industry, VA activities can be broad in scope, but can be categorized as administrative, creative and technical in nature.

You should NOT confuse a real estate virtual assistant with an Independent Sales Agent (ISA). Rather, a real estate VA should complement an ISA, improving productivity and sales opportunities.  Since your real estate business is all about sales, your real estate VA should be viewed as an extension of your inside sales team.

How do you hire a virtual assistant for your real estate business?  When you decide to hire a virtual assistant, you are deciding to outsource some function(s) of your real estate business. Accordingly, whether your business is a one-person shop, a small team starting out, or an established company, this decision requires thought, planning, and execution.

Start By Getting Your House In Order

The basic credo is to start at the beginning and define the WHAT. Basically, what are your business needs, the means, the expectations, the concerns, the risks, and the time-frame?  Because answering this basic question helps you decide whether using a virtual assistant is aligned and fits what your real estate business needs.

If real estate virtual assistant benefits fit the WHAT, you then need to define the scope and functional role of the VA:

What If The VA Relationship Blows Up?

Some marriages end in horrible divorces with children scattered as casualties.  Unfortunately, the same can apply to a virtual assistant business relationship.

In this instance, move the business relationship back inside as quickly as possible, pick up the pieces in the relationship, and look forward to a new day to start over.  Regardless of why it blew up, your real estate business outsourcing needs likely haven’t changed.  So, after a reevaluation of what went wrong, it’s time to get back on the VA horse again.

1 – Real Estate Virtual Assistant Administration Activities

One of the primary real estate virtual assistant benefits is organizing your time and that of other personnel in the real estate agency. Consequently, this improves the productivity of everyone, allowing greater focus on the more important activities that will contribute to the success of the business.

Following are various real estate VA administrative activities that you should consider using:

2 – Real Estate Virtual Assistant Operations Tasks

A successful real estate agency requires many different operational functions to be consistently performed, at a high level of quality.  Basically, they can be categorized into either data entry or transaction management.

As you would suspect, the administration and sales staff of a busy real estate business is normally drowning in operational functions.   Consequently, these functions are rarely done on a consistent basis and, with inconsistent levels of quality.

Keeping the real estate business databases (sales and property management) up to date is essential. Consequently, the mundane activity of data entry and updating systems is a standard component of real estate virtual assistant benefits.

Correspondingly, each document, offer, evaluation, permit, application, listing, inquiry, etc. is a distinct transaction that needs to managed, tracked, and entered into the real estate business systems. Obviously, that’s a lot of data and a lot of lists.

Here are various real estate VA operational functions:

3 – Real Estate Virtual Assistant Marketing Functions

Your real estate business and staff are ALWAYS involved in marketing activities. Specifically, these marketing activities promote the buying or selling of your real estate portfolio of properties and complementary services.

Your real estate agency marketing includes all activities used to draw in customers and maintain relationships with them. Additionally, these include personal networking with potential or past clients, with the goal of seeking new business.   Consequently, one of the key real estate virtual assistant benefits is to help manage this broad scope of activities and the time needed to implement.

Here are various marketing tasks that your virtual assistant can provide to help grow your real estate agency:

4 – Real Estate Virtual Assistant Sales Activities

Your real estate business is all about sales.  Correspondingly, whether your sales team consists of just yourself or in combination with direct and indirect sales agents, productivity is key to your business success.

So, how does a real estate virtual assistant fit in?  Basically, your virtual assistant should be an extension of your inside sales staff.  Specifically, this sales function is related to lead generation, lead follow up, and whatever is required to help the sales team close more qualified prospects.

Lead generation and lead follow up take a variety of forms, takes time, and requires lots of effort. For example, real estate leads can result from cold calling, website inquiry forms, inbound telephone calls, social media, events, networking, and more.  Consequently, lead generation and lead follow up are important real estate virtual assistant benefits because they are used to move them through the sales funnel.

Below are sales functions your real estate virtual assistant should provide to your inside sales team:

DISCLOSURE: Nexus Teleservices is a Nearshore Real Estate Virtual Assistant Services business provider.

5 – Real Estate Virtual Assistant Market Research Tasks

You have heard the phrases before: “Location, location, location” and “It’s a buyer’s market”.  Unquestionably, understanding your local market is key to the success of a real estate business.  So, whether your agency focus is residential, commercial, and/or property management, investing in market research will help your long-term business success.

Real estate market analysis is a time consuming and detailed process.  While your sales team needs to have done, rarely is it the best option at doing so. So, this is where a real estate virtual assistant benefits your agency.

Listed below are virtual assistant market research tasks to help grow your real estate business:

6 – Real Estate Virtual Assistant Business Development Functions

Business development is simply all the ideas, initiatives and activities to make your real estate business better.  Similarly, using a real estate virtual assistant benefits your business since your investment improves its productivity, profitability, and growth.

Your real estate virtual assistant contributes to business development across sales, marketing, finance, project, and vendor management. Simply put, you define the business development direction and goals, while your virtual assistant acts as a doer to achieve them.

Listed below are real estate VA business development functions:

Before starting we need to review some basics about virtual assistant services.  Firstly, a virtual assistant (VA) is often an independent contractor who provides services to one or more business clients from a remote location.  Secondly, real estate virtual assistant services are remarkably broad but can be categorized as administrative, creative and technical in nature and offer a variety of potential benefits for a business owner.

For a real estate professional your most important asset is time. Since there are so many different things to do daily, leveraging real estate virtual assistant services is a must to consider.

1 – Real Estate Virtual Assistant Services – Administration

One of the primary goals of using real estate virtual assistant services is to organize your time and that of other personnel in the real estate agency. As a result, this allows greater focus on the more important functions that will contribute to the success of the business.

Follow are various real estate VA administrative activities:

2 – Real Estate VA Services – Operations

A real estate agency requires a multitude of different functions to operate successfully. Therefore, employing real estate virtual assistant services can significantly help you successfully manage these operational business challenges.

Operational functions can generally be categorized into data entry and transaction management. Generally, a busy real estate agency is buried in both, with the administration and sales personnel always behind, never catching up.

Data And Lists

Keeping the real estate business databases (sales and property management) up to date is essential. Consequently, the mundane activity of data entry of incoming information and updating systems is a standard component of real estate virtual assistant services.

In like manner, each document, offer, evaluation, permit, applications, listing, inquiry, etc. is a distinct transaction that needs to be managed, tracked, and entered into the real estate business systems. So, that’s a lot of data and a lot of lists.

Listed below are various real estate VA operational functions:

3 – Real Estate Virtual Assistant Services – Marketing

A real estate business and its personnel are ALWAYS involved in marketing activities. In this case, marketing refers to activities the business undertakes to promote the buying or selling of real estate products and related services.

Real estate marketing involves all the activities a company undertakes to draw in customers and maintain relationships with them. Also, this includes networking with potential or past clients to seek new business. As a result, real estate virtual assistant services particularly lend themselves to helping manage the scope of activities and time required to implement.

Here are various real estate VA marketing activities;

4 – Real Estate VA Services – Sales

The real estate business is all about sales, sales and more sales. So, how does real estate virtual assistant services fit in? Specifically, it is related to lead generation, lead follow up and supporting you and the agency sales agents close qualified prospects.

Lead generation for a real estate business comes in a variety of forms, takes time, and requires lots of effort. For example, real estate leads can result from cold calling, website inquiry form, inbound telephone calls, social media, events, and more.

However, these leads lose their value if they are not converted to sales. So, the real estate Virtual Assistant helps in the lead follow up process to move them through the sales funnel, to get closed by the agency sales agents

Following are various real estate VA sales functions:

DISCLOSURE: Nexus Teleservices is a Nearshore Virtual Assistant Services business provider.

5 – Real Estate Virtual Assistant Services – Market Research

You have heard the phrase before: “Location, location, location”. Another is “It’s a buyer’s market”. Unquestionably, understanding the local market is important to the success of a real estate business.

Whether you focus on residential, commercial, and/or property management, real estate virtual assistant services can help your understanding of local market trends by market research. Especially when your business focus is selling to potential property investors.

Real estate market analysis is a time consuming and detailed process that your sales agents need to have done but are not necessarily the best at doing so. Basically, real estate market analysis is the gathering of data for an investment property, analyzing it, to get a detailed overview of the property, its location, and its surroundings. So this is where the market research Virtual Assistant plays his/her role.

Listed below are a variety of real estate VA market research functions:

6 – Real Estate VA Services – Business Development

Business development is a catch all term for the ideas, initiatives and activities to make your real estate business better. Correspondingly, real estate virtual assistant services are ultimately focused in helping your business improve its productivity, profitability and growth.

A real estate VA contributes to business development across a variety of areas including sales, marketing, finance, project, and vendor management. Basically, you define the business development direction and goals, and your real estate Virtual Assistant acts as a doer to achieve them.

Following are various real estate VA business development functions: