With a low barrier to entry, virtual assistance is a popular and lucrative profession in the freelance industry. From administrative support to content creation, the beauty of being a virtual assistant (VA) is the diversity of skills you can offer. While general skills are more than enough to land you clients, specialized skills like web development and Facebook ad management open more doors.
Among the reasons for specializing include charging higher rates, establishing credibility in a niche or industry, and retaining existing clientele. If you own a real estate business and want someone to handle your real estate operations, you should hire virtual assistants for real estate.
Though a real estate virtual assistant possesses general VA skills, they’re also equipped with the industry know-how of the real estate sector. In this article, we’ll tackle the roles of a real estate virtual assistant as well as teach you how to hire virtual assistants for real estate.
Why Should I Hire A Real Estate Virtual Assistant?
From researching property valuation to analyzing consumer behavior, a real estate agent spends countless hours juggling marketing, administrative, customer service, and real estate tasks to stay ahead of the real estate industry. As a one-man army, there’s only so much you can handle without burning out or sacrificing your mental health.
Enter virtual assistants. In this fast-paced, digitized world, the popularity and demand for virtual assistant services continue to grow as real estate businesses rely on them for operational efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and better work-life balance. As a matter of fact, it is projected that by 2028, there will be 8.4 million virtual assistants all over the globe — a major increase from 2020’s 3.9 million.
Whatever your goals are for your real estate business, you deserve a helping hand. Below are five reasons why you should hire virtual assistants for real estate.
1. Reduces Overhead Costs
Though convenient, hiring an in-house executive assistant is not always a good idea — especially if you’re just starting your real estate business. Expenses for equipment, training, sick leaves, and Paid Time Offs (PTOs) can add up and take a toll on your budget.
Thankfully, some real estate virtual assistants work as freelancers or independent contractors. Hence — when you hire one — a portion of your budget goes to their salary instead of leaves and other overhead expenses.
2. Increases Access to A Global Talent Pool
Reality check — the job market is competitive. With remote work and outsourcing taking center stage, competition becomes stiffer as the talent pool widens. Because there are more talent options, real estate business owners can factor in skills, expertise, location, and cost of a virtual assistant without limiting themselves to a particular geographical location.
As global talent comes new perspectives, you can think outside the box and make better business decisions.
3. Possesses Specialized Skills
The real estate industry is not for the faint of heart. Even as a budding real estate agent, you have to put in the work just to land your first client. Like you, a skilled virtual assistant has all the skills and mindset to thrive in the real estate industry.
With their vast knowledge of the industry, a real estate virtual assistant can provide data-driven insights, understand market trends, and demonstrate mastery of customer relationship management (CRM) systems and marketing tools. They can even introduce you to new tools and technologies!
4. Communicates In Fluent English
English is a global language and the lifeblood of most workplaces. When you hire virtual assistants for real estate overseas — especially in the Philippines — you can expect your virtual employee to communicate in near-native English. This is a huge plus, as English proficiency facilitates seamless collaboration between you and your virtual employee.
5. Aids In Time Management and Productivity
When you work alone or with limited staff, managing your time and workload becomes a battle of attrition. While time management centers on prioritization, it is also about effective task delegation. When you outsource virtual assistance services to a virtual employee, you can accomplish more high-value tasks in a single day.
What Are the Key Responsibilities of a Real Estate Virtual Assistant?
Also called real estate VA, a real estate virtual assistant is a specialized virtual assistant responsible for delivering administrative and real estate services such as:
1. Property Listing Creation
Real estate virtual assistants create engaging property listings, complete with compelling headlines and copy that includes all relevant property information. Inaccurate details and false claims are a no-go, so a real estate VA must ensure the accuracy and truthfulness of a property listing.
2. Appointment Setting
This task involves managing and scheduling upcoming agent and client appointments. Success in setting appointments entails keen organization skills and tech-saviness. Knowing multiple languages is advantageous in this role due to cultural and linguistic differences between clients.
3. Market Research
In this role, a real estate virtual assistant compares and monitors sales, analyzes customer needs and behavior, and understands competitor behavior. Through market research, virtual assistants can stay ahead of competitors and ensure customer satisfaction.
4. Customer Service
Real estate virtual assistants answer client inquiries in all communication channels, building trust and ensuring their needs are taken care of. To consistently provide excellent customer service, a real estate virtual assistant must be an empath and active listener.
5. Data Entry
A real estate assistant organizes, inputs, and updates client information into a database, ensuring that all data is listed accurately.
6. Email Marketing
Virtual assistants responsible for email marketing create engaging, personalized emails to build relationships with clients, utilizing templates and automation tools to speed up the process.
How to Hire A Virtual Assistant for Real Estate
The right virtual assistant for real estate can make a huge difference in your business. Despite the abundance of real estate virtual assistants, a real estate professional like you must stay grounded to ensure you hire the right candidate.
Whether it’s your first foray into hiring a real estate VA, or you already have a couple of hiring experiences under your belt, our step-by-step tutorial is a good primer or refresher on hiring a virtual assistant for real estate.
1. Take Inventory of Your Real Estate Needs
Hiring without a clear blueprint of your needs and requirements is like navigating uncharted waters. Observe your working environment and answer the questions below:
- How is your team’s workload?
- Has the team experienced trouble in completing a task?
- Which tasks are high-value and low-value?
- What tasks are my team capable of doing?
- Has client engagement deteriorated?
- Has your team established a good client relationship lately?
- Does my team need more experienced members?
These questions will help you identify skill gaps or productivity lapses. Let’s say you can’t create engaging copy for a property listing. In this case, you can include copywriting and property listing creation in your list of requirements in a real estate virtual assistant. As you conduct your needs assessment, you’ll have a clearer picture of what you’re looking for in a real estate VA.
Based on your inventory of needs, you can identify the type of employment and set appropriate working hours for your soon-to-be virtual assistant.
2. Draft and Review Your Job Posting
Begin your job posting with a catchy job title. The title should act as a summary of the skills required for the job. Instead of “Virtual Assistant for Real Estate” or “Need a Rockstar Real Estate VA,” try “Real Estate Virtual Assistant for Market Research” or “Real Estate Virtual Assistant for Copywriting.” The goal is to make the title concise, so you can attract the right candidates.
After the job title, craft a powerful hook that compels candidates to keep reading your job description. You can include a brief introduction of your real estate company, too! Next, create a bullet point or checklist of qualifications. Provide the minimum experience or education level as well as whether the position requires experience in working for a BPO.
Then, list the job responsibilities of the role. These should be in bullet form, and each description should be short and action-oriented to ensure clarity. Lastly, include the perks of working for your real estate company— which can be anything from bonuses to paid holidays. End your job listing with a CTA coaxing applicants to submit their resumes. Finally, review your draft.
3. Explore the Web
Now, the hunt begins. If you’re wondering where you can hire a virtual assistant, there’s Upwork, OnlineJobs.ph, and Fiverr. Like submitting a resume, posting your job listing is a numbers game. The more you post, the more likely you’ll get prospects.
Do your research and avoid limiting yourself to freelance and job search platforms. If you want virtual assistants for real estate for a big project, why not request a quote from the best BPO companies or the top property management companies? In these companies, the real estate virtual assistants are already pre-screened and trained, easing the burden of hiring off your shoulders.
There’s no shame in looking into your personal network, as well. You can upload your job listing on LinkedIn, so your connections can point you to a real estate VA. Facebook is also another way of getting prospects, though it can be a hit or miss depending on the quality of the candidates.
4. Hire A Real Estate VA
From here, you can start shortlisting candidates based on their resumes or proposals. Shortlisted candidates can proceed with a 10- to 15-minute interview. It’s recommended to prepare a mix of general, situational, and real estate-related interview questions to test the candidate’s knowledge of the real estate industry and assess what they can bring to the table.
Candidates who pass the interview can be administered a test task to evaluate their performance and ability to complete a task within a limited time frame. The test should mimic real-world tasks and be appropriate to the job position.
5. Meet Your Real Estate VA
Congratulations on hiring a real estate virtual assistant! During your first meeting, establish a dedicated communication channel, so your new hire knows where to contact you. Share what CRM software or project management tools you use in your business.
Give your new hire space to share the tools they’ve used in their previous job or client. This way, you can experiment with new tools that may streamline daily operations. Set expectations and orient your virtual assistant on house rules, deliverables, and expected turnaround times.
If you hire multiple real estate virtual assistants, use the first meeting as an ice-breaker to acquaint all new hires and your in-house team.
6. Onboard Your Real Estate Virtual Assistant
Even if you hire an experienced real estate virtual assistant, you can’t expect them to master everything in one to two days. Take your time in the onboarding process and make sure your real estate VA is comfortable with your business’s daily workflow. You can supervise them for one to weeks, so they won’t struggle much after getting comfortable in their role.
7. Provide Feedback
Feedback is critical to improvement. As your real estate VA learns the ropes, conduct regular feedback sessions to highlight their strengths and weaknesses and provide action plans for improvement. These sessions also serve as an avenue for your VA to share their concerns and struggles.
Unfortunately, not everything works out well. If you think your real estate VA has not shown improvement, you can let them go and hire a replacement.
Hire A Virtual Assistant for Your Real Estate Business
As the real estate sector continues to evolve, real estate agents must keep abreast of emerging trends to stay relevant in the field. Juggling administrative, marketing, and property management services is not always feasible. A real estate company is not complete without a real estate VA.
Packaged with the skills of general VAs, real estate virtual assistants are the industry’s heroes. They improve efficiency, reduce expenses, provide market insights, and build long-lasting client relationships. If you’re looking for a reliable VA team, check out KDCI Outsourcing.
KDCI Outsourcing excels in providing world-class yet cost-effective real estate services. Building your real estate team with us ensures your offshore team is composed of not just a real estate virtual assistant, but also a real estate telemarketer, real estate legal consultant, lead generation specialist, and other related roles.
Contact us now, and let us assist you in your path to real estate success!
