Can a Virtual Assistant help realtors as the busy home buying season is underway? We think so, and here’s why.
Behind The Trend
There are a lot of misconceptions about realtors. And we get it: From the outside, it looks like it’s all fun and games – flexible hours, fancy cars, and impressive incomes. But the reality of what goes on behind the scenes is a lot more complicated.
As such, the demand for real estate assistants – both virtual and on-site – has increased exponentially due largely in part to the influx of online leads. So, realtors have quickly realized that delegating a large part of their administrative work can boost the return on investment on their online marketing and generate even more business.
While there have historically only been two types of real estate assistants – transactions coordinators and inside sales associates responsible for contacting and following up with leads – more and more brokers and realtors are opting for virtual assistants.
Why Realtors?
From going out to look for properties that are for sale or lease, to completing administrative tasks, to continually educating themselves on EVERY.SINGLE.PROPERTY. they represent, to keeping an eye out for prospective clients, realtors have to multitask as real estate requires a lot more hard work and hours than the usual nine-to-five.
And let’s not overlook that the typical sale of a home involves more than 20 steps and more than 100 different people with different skills and expertise to ensure that the transaction goes smoothly, on schedule and adhering to the legal requirements.
All these tasks and more consume so much time – which is why realtors need all-hands-on-deck at all times. But since hiring a full-time in-person assistant can sometimes be too costly, they have turned to virtual assistants.
What a Real Estate Virtual Assistant Can Do
Virtual assistants can be unimaginably helpful, leaving realtors to focus on what they do best: closing deals and client-building.
Here are just a few ways top realtors are leveraging virtual assistants.
Data Entry
Virtual assistants can be tasked with updating MLS or Zillow listings or entering leads into a CRM.
Listing Research
A virtual assistant can help you answer questions like which listings have kitchens with windows facing east and which four-bedroom ranches are on quiet, tree-lined streets.
Manage Buyer & Seller Leads
A virtual assistant can help you learn a little something about every single person that RSVPs to your open houses.
Scheduling & Calendar Management
A virtual assistant can schedule – and reschedule – with clients, buyer’s agents or listing agents to keep your calendar conflict-free.
Logistics
Need to call a dozen florists because yours canceled the morning of your staging appointment? Home inspector running late? Need printed marketing collateral? A real estate virtual assistant can handle all that – and more!
Personal Task
Even a simple task like finding the best-value little league equipment for your child can swallow an hour or more of your time as you click around online. Solution? Assign this and other personal tasks to a virtual assistant.
Bookkeeping
With a virtual assistant, you can delegate bookkeeping because let’s be honest: Unless numbers and math and budgets get you all jazzed up, your time is probably best spent doing something else.
Improve Your Online Presence
To stay competitive in today’s digital market, you need to be a local expert. And virtual assistants can put in the time and effort to make sure your social media efforts reach as many people as possible.
Blogging
A virtual assistant can scour the web for great articles to keep your blog current, relevant and then help promote it online.
Link Building
Your virtual assistant can handle link building – getting other websites to link to yours for better placement on Google searches – to increase traffic to your site and land you more leads.
Social Media
Virtual assistants can keep Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram accounts current and active to keep followers on social media engaged and generate more buzz.
Bottom line: If a realtor doesn’t have an admin, they are the admin. And we’d venture, and rather confidently at that, that there aren’t enough hours in the day to do what needs to get done, let alone all of the administrative tasks that come with real estate.
But a virtual assistant can change all that. So while realtors can be left to focus on making the dollars, we guarantee that a virtual assistant will make sense.