A Real Estate Virtual Assistant or VA is someone located virtually in another space who can help you with the tasks you just cannot or do not want to do in your business. There are really many varying levels of VA’s depending on what you want to achieve. A Real Estate Virtual Assistant can help independent agents, business owners, property managers, and transaction coordinators.
How to hire a Real Estate Virtual Assistant?
The good news is that it is getting easier to hire a real estate virtual assistant and to find one who has the right skill sets for you. Before you go down the hiring process, you need to get all your ducks in a row and be prepared, as it is not something to be taken lightly. You know your business like the back of your hand, and to find someone else who does is impossible! Before you get started with your first real estate VA, you need to be clear with what you exactly want them to do.
How to prepare yourself before hiring a Real Estate Virtual Assistant?
The first thing I would suggest is to make sure you have a clear document on what your business does and how it works from end to end. If you have one already, that is great. If you do not, then you MUST create one. Personally, I do not enjoy this type of task, so here is my secret: get someone else to do it! Here is how you can get it done fast:
- Write down the main headings of your process from start to finish
- Record exactly what happens in those stages in audio or video
- Pass the audio to someone who likes this stuff like this guy
This will give you the basis. To finish what you need to do and to be prepared, you just need to follow these steps again. Now you are looking to create a procedure for how each of these steps is done rather than the overall process. So, to do this, you will need to video each of the steps from end to end. The same guy should be able to do it however I have found this guy to be very good.
When you see these things documented it will give you a whole different outlook on your business. All you have to do now is review the processes and pull out the pieces you want your Real Estate VA to do. This is not limited to just back office tasks, you can take it to any level you want and what can be achieved will depend on how good you are at building out these systems.
Which tools should I use to manage my Real Estate Tasks and VA?
I have done a lot of research on this over the past 10 years and the answer is to just make sure you have one. There are many tools out there that can help you with workflows, task allocation and tracking. Just to barrage you with this here is my list of all the tools I have used and discovered that are worth a look.
To save you a lot of hassle, recently I have discovered the best app I have ever seen called ClickUp. This tool is damn amazing in what it can do. It replaced nearly all the tools that I was using before and has saved me a lot of money on subscriptions. Check out this article ClickUp for Real Estate to learn more about it.
One of my clients that I showed ClickUp to recently has achieved some amazing things working with his VA in this space. He has created what I call a Real Estate Utopia where his tasks are passed with ease and speed, and everyone is in their flow doing only what they need to do. This is very exciting for Real Estate, and I see it only getting bigger.
Are you ready to hire your first Real Estate Virtual Assistant?
If you have completed all of the above, then you are 100% ready for this, and now all you have to choose is where you will hire your VA from and where they will work from. I bring this up as it is very important, and you must consider why you are hiring a VA in the first place. For most people, it is either a cost-saving or a scaling exercise. My recommendation may be a little biased, however, I will give it anyway. I say outsource to the Philippines.
By hiring a Real Estate VA in the Philippines, you can meet both your goals in one by hiring talent at an affordable cost and find the variety of talent you need to scale. Once you get your back office sorted, you will want to add more marketing and lead gen to fuel the beast. In the Philippines, you will find educated, hardworking, and loyal staff with great communication skills. The only talent I cannot find is more business-minded individuals. Filipinos tend to be very good at following and not so good at building. These are things to consider, and that is why I went very heavy on the process in this article.
I have been doing this now for a very long time. I know what to expect and what is unrealistic. However, that does not mean your core team cannot find the right person for the task. I give them the freedom to make that decision, and it works well. If you cannot do the task, find someone who can.
Where will your Real Estate VA work from, home-based or office-based?
This is an interesting one due to the recent pandemic, where it has seen most of the world work from home at varying levels. Working from home is fine for the western world, however, not so fine for 3rd world countries. The infrastructure simply cannot handle it, and the standard of living cannot accommodate a professional work environment. You can go against this advice and expect to hear roosters, experience electricity blackouts, and a very slow internet connection, not to mention the slowness of the equipment being used.
Office-based is by far the best solution until there is a better home-based solution, which I think, we may have come up with for the future, but it is office for now. The reason is that the company provides the equipment, the internet is fast, there is back-up power, and you do not have to deal with the employment side. It may cost you a little bit more, but it is well worth it.
How do I pick who I hire as my Real Estate Virtual Assistant?
The usual process is that the company you engage will advertise your role and actively seek suitable candidates for you to review. This can be a bit frustrating itself and time-consuming, as they may not vet candidates as well as you may like. At ShoreAgents, we have an insane process when it comes to advertising, filtering, and testing candidates. Only the best and most committed are selected for you to choose. We also noticed a gap in the way candidates are presented to the end client and how hard it is to simply hire. We know of a solution for this.
We have built the first Real Estate specific online platform for hiring a VA that will sit in our office. All you need to do is create an account, look through the talent to see if they have the skills you want, then click “INTERVIEW.” After your interview, if you would like to hire the candidate, then just click “HIRE” and consider it done. With ease like this, there is really no barrier to getting started.
Before I finish, I would like to offer you some resources that once again will help you get this journey right as I have seen many get it wrong. I am passionate about this and growing the biggest Real Estate BPO in the Philippines as you will learn in these two eBooks.
If you have enjoyed this article as much as I enjoyed writing it, please leave a comment with a little appreciation, and share it across your social media platforms, as sharing is caring. On another note, if you have found this article but actually wanting to become a virtual assistant for real estate, just read the article linked here. Have a great day.
