So, you want to become a real estate virtual assistant.
Why wouldn’t you ?!?
It’s a less known yet highly rewarding way to make money from home working in the real estate industry – without becoming a real estate agent.
Offering VA services to real estate professionals is a smart business decision.
But how do you do it?
Like, you are wondering…
- How do I become a virtual assistant at home?
- What skills do you need to become a virtual assistant?
- What does a real estate virtual assistant do?
- How do I become a virtual assistant with no experience?
And when you do get people on the phone, what do you say?
Today we’re going to walk you through all of that, plus a few basics like; What’s a virtual assistant, the kind of jobs real estate virtual assistants do, and how to find clients fast.
This is where the rubber meets the road (if you stick to it) where your real estate virtual assistant skills meet everything you’ve ever wanted: loyal clients, profit, and influencer status.
Sounds good, right?
So without further ado, let cover a few basics.
Basic Understanding of Virtual Assistants
What is a real estate virtual assistant
A virtual assistant remotely provides various services to businesses and entrepreneurs. Real estate virtual assistant tasks include; digital marketing, scheduling appointments, managing events, or any other administrative role you can think of.
What does a real estate virtual assistant do?
Real estate virtual assistants help real estate professionals run their business while they pursue their business’s primary objective – to sell.
Some services include;
- Market Research
- Marketing Tasks
- Managing Listings
- Social Media Management
- Email Management
- Organizing paperwork for a real estate transaction
- Coordinating Property Showings
- Customer Feedback Tasks
- Real estate investor virtual assistant tasks
- Preparing Meeting Materials
- Website Managing
The list is endless, and most clients prefer working with a real estate VA who can handle a variety of tasks.
But, is there sufficient demand for real estate virtual assistants? Yes, and we’ll see that next.
Why real estate agents need virtual assistants
Ideally, hiring a full-time employee means the real estate agent pays a monthly salary, allowances, and other expenses. But as a virtual assistant for real estate agents, you save them money. You agree on a predetermined amount, either hourly or task-based, which they find more economical on their business.
How much does a real estate virtual assistant make?
Maybe you’re asking how much does a real estate VA make?
Depending on how much time you put in, you can make between $24k – $70k annually as a real estate assistant. You can also get bonuses when houses sell.
An experienced real estate virtual assistant can charge between $25 – $40 per hour. It’s also common for real estate virtual assistants to offer specific jobs as a package.
For example, you can offer a social media management package to include updates or blog posts plus social media content.
What is a real estate virtual assistant salary?
You can also work out a retainer package of say 20-hours per week, which can come to $2000 per month. You can eventually charge $30 + per hour as you become more experienced.
Is a real estate virtual assistant job a good option for you?
A real estate virtual assistant job is an ideal option for you if you’re willing to learn. A few traits you must have are;
- Highly organized
- Social skills and an excellent communicator
- Ability to multitask
- Keen to detail
- Passion for the real estate industry
- Self-motivated
Note: If you love the idea of becoming a real estate virtual assistant, then you shouldn’t worry about;
- Inadequate real estate knowledge
- Not being sure about the services you’ll offer
- Lacking confidence in meeting your client’s needs
- Marketing yourself and landing clients
- Packaging and selling your services.
What if you’ve never worked in the real estate industry or never been a VA?
How do you become a virtual assistant with no experience?
Then you must start with the right tools and training if you want to scale and become profitable fast.
Here’s the thing.
When a real estate agent decides to hire a VA, he or she is already too busy and does not want to spend time training the basics.
The right real estate virtual assistant training and tools are your arsenals when it comes to impressing your prospects and landing your first high-paying client fast.
Why?
Because the training gives you detailed insights into your clients’ pain points, making it easy for you to speak to your prospects and convince them to hire you.
However, a lack of skills should never be a deterrent.
The desire to learn, excellent communication, and a high degree of motivation are equally important.
That said, let’s look at the kind of training you need to kickstart your career as a real estate virtual assistant.
Becoming a Freelance Writer Without Experience (Step-By-Step Guide)
7 High-Income Skills You Can Learn and Make Money
Where Can You Get Real Estate Virtual Assistant Training?
The following two excellent real estate va courses can help you become a real estate virtual assistant.
Or if you want to start your own virtual assistant business.
1. General VA Course
Imagine starting a successful virtual assistant business from scratch – building on the skills you already have or learning a few new ones.
Jumpstart Your Virtual Assistant Business (in 4 simple steps!) – their $19 entry-point course, which allows you to invest less than twenty bucks, an hour of your time, It will leave you knowing whether or not becoming a VA is right for you!
2. Real Estate Virtual Assistant Course
It’s for people who already have some VA experience and want to specialize in the real estate industry.
The FullyBookedVA System is an all-in-one membership solution to help you start, build and scale your RE virtual Assistance business from scratch. You start with a VA foundation course that lays the groundwork for your business while gaining access to the live weekly office hours. You also get peer-to-peer support and more via the community.
Once you complete the course and passed the final exam, you become a Horkey Handbook VA-Certified which unlocks access to proprietary and proprietary client leads that you can pitch. The five-skill course will start you on the path of specialization and commanding high rates.
You’ll eventually be able to choose one of the five specialization tracks. You’ll not only get paired with a mentor when you specialize but also receive monthly training to dive deeper and gain access to your own private community of like-minded peers on the same track.
Pricing is currently $199 per month or $1,194 per year.
If you wish to specialize or offer broader VA services across multiple industries, Gina will not only show you the way but will match you with businesses looking for qualified VAs.
Here’s a summary of what you learn from the course.
- Actual real estate process from the inside
- How to prepare lists and task workflows
- Transaction management (agents biggest pain point)
- Social media management
- Email Management specifically for realtors
- Tools you’ll need in your business
- Tips on how to becomes successful
- Productive client communication
- How to set up a real estate virtual assistant business. You’ll learn how to set competitive rates and have a clear picture of your ROI.
- You’ll also learn how to deal with taxes
- How to find and pitch clients
That’s not all.
She also provides templates to make your work easier and successful from day one. If you want to know the ins and outs of being a real estate VA, then she has included a link to help you make a decision.
Caution: There are various online courses, given the popularity of the virtual assistant profession. But some are scammers offering low prices just to hook you, and disappear once you issue payment.
Always look for reputable courses and their reviews.
Check here and read more from previous students and get to work.
How do I Become a Real Estate Virtual Assistant at Home?
How do I start a real estate virtual assistant business?
Step 1: Develop your real estate virtual assistant skills :
Your exceptional VA skills will have more of an impact on how much money you make than anything else. Here’s why;
Clients paying the highest rates are those who understand the value of a virtual assistant. They’re happy to pay professional virtual assistants because they believe (correctly) that it’ll help them dominate the industry.
So, once you learn how to be a real estate virtual assistant, how do you level up your skill at being exceptional?
The good news is, here are some of the essential VA skills for you to develop.
What skills do you need to become a real estate virtual assistant?
A valid question and virtual assistant skills are diverse.
- Social Media Management – Social media is an absolute goldmine for real estate businesses. Facebook is a no-brainer and remains a staple of marketing for real estate agents.
Learn about social media strategy that can set up a client’s business with a pipeline for new leads, nurture prospective ones, and follow up with past clients.
- Time Management – If you’re looking to launch a Virtual Assistant business, then the one thing that you will already know is that time is money.
To be a successful Virtual Assistant, you need to be productive with your time. Luckily, due to the internet, there are several free and low-cost tools for Virtual Assistants to help make you more productive and your job easier.
- Content Writing/Marketing Skills – Your skill at creating exceptional content will also determine how much money you make. Companies pay top dollar to a writer who can bring traffic to their site, engage their audience on social media and blogs.
Content marketing skills will also help you in the long run when you start your blog. (we’ll discuss that in a few minutes)
And while the above skills are a good start, additional skills include;
- Use of automation tools and office software
- Personal experience in the real estate industry is a plus.
- Basic knowledge of data management systems and database software
Step 2: Build Your Real Estate Virtual Assistant Portfolio
It’s challenging to become a real estate virtual assistant without an extensive VA Portfolio. A portfolio is the only proof for prospects that you know what you’re doing.
But how do you build a portfolio with no experience?
This is what you do.
Pretend some clients hired you to be their virtual assistant and gave you specific projects to complete.
Create forms, brochures, flyers, filled up calendars, or other samples you can contrive and put in a PDF or list on your website to show your prospects.
It’s that simple. Right?
Step 3: Set Your Virtual Real Estate Assistant Pricing and Working Hours
How many hours a week can you work? There’s no upper limit of working hours if you’re a freelancer or work from home.
Some roles require you to have specific working hours when you can perform regular office duties like answering calls.
Others are purely remote like creating flyers, social media marketing, responding to comments on the blog etc. They’re more flexible, and you can pick your working hours.
How do virtual assistants get paid? Agents rarely pay real estate virtual assistants per hour unless they implement an online clock-in/clock-out system to monitor your hours.
Mostly you’ll agree on per task pay or a salary for duties allocated. For example, he can pay you $1000 for a number of social media posts, write 3-5 blog posts, or other tasks required in a specific time frame.
The flexibility allows you to take in more or less work, depending on your schedule. If you have a young family, then you can take work that doesn’t make you sacrifice your family for work. You can always take up more as your kids become older.
Furthermore, as you gain more experience, you become more efficient and can perform some tasks faster. Efficiency allows you to earn more money as a real estate virtual assistant working fewer hours.
Step 4: Get Your First Paying Client
So, we talked about creating your most relevant skills ie social media management, time management, and content marketing skills. Then we talked about creating the credibility of a professional real estate virtual assistant.
What about getting clients? That’s the hard part, right?
In the beginning, yes. Eventually, top real estate virtual assistants end up getting more work than they can handle, mostly by referral. But getting the first few paying clients can be a real slog.
Here are some insider tricks for getting started.
Sign up with a real estate virtual assistant agency.
Agencies provide you with the necessary training to become effective in your VA roles. Even if you don’t have the experience, they’ll build you up by assigning you some administrative tasks.
Another big plus is that you get continuous training on the job and consistent work. The real estate va training is always up to date to keep you competitive in the industry.
Getting to work with an agency can be competitive, especially if you’re a beginner. However, some soft skills like willingness to learn, commitment, dedication, passion, resilience, hard work can get you through the door.
Pitch real estate agents.
It may seem odd, but stick with me here for a moment. You want to work with real estate businesses who have the budget to spend on a VA.
- Check on their social media pages and be active.
- Offer valuable feedback on the posts without sounding salesy.
- Look for their marketing directors or managers and pitch them directly and ask if they even hire VAs.
- Tell them what you can do and how your services will help them achieve their goals.
Browse high-quality job boards. LinkedIn Jobs, FlexJobs, and Indeed are a few good options.
Refer to your services in your byline. Let’s say you are writing some guest posts for top blogs in real estate. Mention your VA services in your byline to attract clients.
Other places to find freelance VA jobs include; Upwork, FlexJobs, local job listings, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Step 5: Scale until You No Longer Want to
It’s thrilling to get your first paying client – even if they’re paying you just to manage their social media pages in your free time.
But it’s useful to step back and think about how becoming a real estate virtual assistant fits into an overall career.
Here’s the career path for most virtual assistant:
Phase 1: Create a Nice Side Income
Most people start VA businesses part-time with just a few VA roles on the side, and I think that’s smart. You can learn the craft, build your networks, and make a few bucks on the side. Most likely, about $20-$25 per hour.
It won’t make you rich, but it’s certainly not a wrong side gig. Many part-time VAs make $500-$1000 per month.
Eventually, with more experience, you’ll also start getting more work than you can handle in your spare time and even becoming an affiliate. That’s when you start pondering how to move to the next phase.
Phase 2: A Full-Time Job or Business
How do I become a virtual assistant at home? When should I consider quitting my day job?
The most straightforward answer: whenever you feel confident, your freelance VA income could replace your salary. You can try either…
- Go to work as a full-time real estate virtual assistant working with other real estate professionals.
- Start your own VA agency (i.e.virtual assistant business). Once you have a few clients, you can begin hiring people to work under you and grow your agency.
Both options have significant upsides. You can have a long, stable career as a VA working at companies who genuinely appreciate it. Building a VA agency could potentially make you six figures.
However, I’ve found that even the most successful VAs eventually move on to…
Phase 3: Starting Your Own Blog and Coaching Services
In the past, maybe you’ve thought of starting your blog as the first step, not the last, and it’s true — nothing is stopping you from starting your blog right now.
But think about it for a moment…
Would you instead start your site right now, spend a couple of years learning everything from scratch, and then slowly begin to make money from it?
Or could it be a better option to work for someone else, get paid while you learn, then start your blog even train others with several years of experience under your belt?
Most successful people choose the second option. And I think it makes sense.
Yes, you can start your blog right now, and yes, you can be successful — but it’s a tough road. You’ll have to persistently put in the effort for months on end before it begins to pay off.
The second option payoff is fast.
Take a month or two to learn the basics, and another two months or less to get your first client.
Building your own VA powerhouse takes a while, but it’s easier to stay persistent when money is coming in each time you publish content on your blog.
You can also create courses just like Gina Horkey and many other gurus.
The bottom line?
You Can Make Good Money As a Real Estate Virtual Assistant
It’s tragic how many people don’t think of becoming real estate virtual assistants. Because they believe no one needs their services or they cannot make a living from it.
That’s not true.
Yes, it’s tough to make a living scraping by the bottom dollar clients. Yes, it’s difficult to manage a family working from home.
Like driving kids everywhere, attending all the school events, cleaning up, and cooking for them, all while doubling up as a real estate virtual assistant.
And there are times when you get up early on a Sunday morning to finish up a task or meet that pressing deadline. Or stay up late to catch up with some work after spending a whole day with kids at the beach.
You can only do so much, and that means you won’t also make as much money.
But maybe that’s not what you want.
Maybe, all you want want is some extra money to pay off debt, save more, or go for a holiday. Perhaps you’re looking for ways to turn your spare time into income without leaving your day job.
Plus, you’ll be amazed at how creative you can stretch your day – having all the time to focus on building your business. It means no time wasted commuting to and from work (if you choose to make it full-time) or catching up with colleagues at the watercooler.
Isn’t making an extra $500 per month or more something to be proud of?
But those are only a few drawbacks of being a VA.
If you want to hit the six figure income as a VA, go where the money is. That’s what any smart person does.
Start by working for other businesses, get a full-time job at an Agency, and then branch off on your own — exactly the career path I described above.
The results?
Make between $24k – $70k annually as a real estate assistant.
Yeah…
So please, never doubt your ability to make money as a successful real estate virtual assistant.
It’s possible if you can be smart about the process.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]re