If you work in real Estate, probably you’ve heard this before – your top priority is to generate new business. There is no passive lead generation in real estate, you have to get out there and make things happen otherwise you won’t be able to build your listing inventory.
How Real Estate Virtual Assistants Can Help You Hit Your Lead Generation Goals
Real estate business coaches, like the highly appreciated Tim and Julie Harris or Brian Icenhower, think that you need to generate your own leads. These coaches do a great job at offering real estate agents resources on how to smarten up their strategies and turn leads into face-to-face meetings.
As you know, selling a service isn’t scalable – a day only has 24 hours and the amount of work you can put in is always limited, so you need a way to get around this and keep leads coming in at a rate that will make your annual GCI soar like never before.
This is where real estate virtual assistants come in – they’re 4-5-6 times cheaper than local talent, easy to manage, super productive, and eager to prove themselves. Hiring a part-time or full-time real estate lead generation virtual assistant is going to transform your business.
Our real estate virtual assistants told us about the tasks they have completed for American and Australian real estate agents and brokers to help them streamline their businesses and increase the number of generated leads. Even though they’re not the ones to close deals or negotiate contracts, their work is freeing up a real estate agent’s workload and growing their database. They’re allowing the real estate agents to really focus on the money making activities by taking on items that are usually found on the database building, sphere of influence expansion or back-office to-do lists.
75 Tasks Real Estate Agents can Delegate to Remote Assistants to Generate More Leads
Real estate virtual assistants can help real estate agents in many ways. Here are 75 tasks a real estate VA could do for you for as low as $6/hour to help you generate more real estate leads.
They can help you build your database and make the most out of your sphere of influence:
#1 Search for FSBOs on Craigslist and other websites. Motivated owners will not pass the opportunity to add their ad to free advertising platforms like Craigslist, Kijiji, Gumtree, etc. Your real estate lead generation virtual assistant can browse the ads in your area and send you daily new property reports.
#2 Search for contacts for circle prospecting. When you’re selling a property in a good neighbourhood, you can also target the seller’s neighbours to become your clients. After all, it’s more attractive to potential buyers to visit 3 properties in the same location, all sold by you.
#3 Pull homeowners’ phone numbers using mojosells.com or similar services. Mojo Data scans over 30 sources to capture and offer clients real-time and older “for sale by owner” data.
#4 Contact divorce lawyers to propose a referral deal. When couples divorce, they can decide to sell the house. A divorce attorney would be among the first to know what properties will go on the market and they could easily recommend a real estate agent the now divorced couple could trust.
#5 Use hunter.io to find email addresses of people working for companies located in your area of interest. If you plan on emailing people to expand your network, your real estate virtual assistant can find the email addresses of those working for local companies.
#6 Write blog posts for content marketing. Content marketing is the go-to solution for many real estate agents who can’t afford to invest too much in pay per click campaigns and are interested in an investment that would continuously deliver results. With a bit of training or time for research, your real estate remote assistant can write evergreen content for your real estate blog.
#7 Install and manage lead capturing forms. Using forms under your blog posts delivers better results than using web forms only on your contact page. Your real estate VA can install lead capturing forms and help you convert as many website visitors as possible.
#8 Contact movers to propose referral deal. It’s not the most amusing of topics but this deserves your attention, especially when you’re located in a city filled with real estate agents (they know when someone passes away and the house gets cleared, so they can indicate which properties are about to go on the market).
#9 Search for expired listings. You can start early – have your virtual assistant track the soon-to-be-expired listings and the moment they expire, pick up the phone and help the seller understand why there weren’t any offers made.
#10 Keep track of areas where your agents go door knocking. Door knocking is still one of the most efficient ways of generating leads. Even real estate agents selling properties worth over 1 million praise it. Knowing what ground your agency covered and what still needs to be explored, can help you speed up the process.
#11 Help agents identify new areas for door knocking. Based on new property development and the increases in property value across neighbourhoods, your real estate virtual assistant can help your team find the best places for going door knocking to drop some market snapshots.
#12 Order door hangers. Leaving a door hanger when the property owners weren’t home during your door-knocking session can increase your chances of generating leads in that area. It also lets people know why you knocked on their door in case a nosy neighbour saw you.
#13 Input the contacts collected from door knocking into a video marketing funnel. When people do think about selling but not anytime soon, you can add them to a video marketing funnel, offering them educational content on the real estate market. One great system for this, praised by many successful real estate agents, is Vyral Marketing, which even lets you know which contacts check your videos more frequently.
#14 Test lead generation software. From time to time, a new startup company would emerge promising real estate agents great lead capturing solutions. It really takes a lot of time to keep up with the press releases and use every free demo account. You can have your real estate lead generation VA test out new software and get back to you with the most promising online tools.
#15 Send follow-up emails after you talk to a prospect. Top-of-mind awareness is the holy grail of the real estate world. Achieving this in the real estate market, especially in your neighbourhood of interest, can be easier if you have your real estate VA to help you keep your name in front of your contacts.
#16 Help you find the developers and designers to launch a home valuation website. A good home valuation website can be a gold mine. That’s why it’s important you get it right by working with designers and developers who worked on similar projects before. Your real estate virtual assistant can search for these people on freelancing websites like UpWork or browse LinkedIn in search of potential hires.
#17 Run Facebook ad campaigns to get sellers on your email list. Some real estate agents focus completely on Facebook, targeting potential clients based on the zip code of the neighbourhood they’re interested in. Running ads offering free home appraisals can prove to be a winning tactic.
#18 Print team brochures for door knocking. When you go door knocking, and the owner is interested in selling, it’s great to leave something more than a business card behind. A team brochure presenting your staff and their stats can be a great confidence builder.
#19 Schedule lunch meetings with promising prospects. Some homeowners are really chatty and they can be a great source of info on your neighbourhood. Your VA can set up the meeting for you.
#20 Add people on Facebook. After your real estate virtual assistant adds up to 5 new people as friends on your account each day, all from your city/neighbourhood, you can then add new comments on their posts, send DMs and slowly grow your network.
#21 Help organise local events for the agent to connect with the neighbourhood they are serving. Renting out the local cinema for a private screening, organising a beach party or an outdoor brunch can be great ways to invite the community to an event that would bring people together and give you the opportunity to position yourself as the top real estate agent in the neighbourhood.
#22 Send prospects educational information about the real estate market. Showing prospects that you work hard to get their business will make them confident that you’ll do more than any other agent to get their property sold for a good price. Your real estate lead generation virtual assistant can edit documents and prepare them to be sent to prospects.
#23 Ask for Zillow reviews to satisfied clients just before a deal is signed, when they are the most satisfied. Good reviews are good for business. Don’t let them pop-up on your profile by chance. People who get positive reviews ask for them at the right moment. Your real estate virtual assistant can help you ask for those reviews.
#24 Email Craigslist advertisers who look motivated to sell a property. A divorce is usually a good indicator for a motivated seller. You can have your real estate lead generation virtual assistant scan the “for sale” section for people mentioning a divorce in their ads – they might also have to sell or buy a new property.
#25 Help you identify new real estate farming areas and research ideas on how to do it. The more frequently you get your name in front of people living in a certain neighbourhood, the more listings you’ll get in that community. Having a clear plan on how to approach the communities you’re interested in is crucial. Your real estate lead generation virtual assistant can help you not only identify new areas to prospect but also discover new ways of farming them.
#26 Research referral marketing systems for you to implement. Referral marketing works, but it’s never easy finding the right way to implement a system. Your real estate virtual assistant can find systems used by other successful agents and even test software solutions, then present you their findings, so you could decide what system will benefit you and your clients.
#27 Schedule and post pre-approved content on your social media accounts. You’re never done informing prospects about the real estate market and how they can take advantage of the latest developments. You can create new content yourself or have your real estate VA do it, but your social media accounts should become a great source of fresh info for sellers and buyers.
#28 Help you do free home appraisals. Let your VA do the virtual legwork, pulling data from various sources, preparing documents. All you’ll have to do is review the document put together by your real estate virtual assistant and make any necessary adjustments.
#29 Manage and update your contact list. You can just forward a new email to your VA and the new contact is added to your list, marketing funnel, pinned on a map, and entered into your CRM software.
#30 Research info needed for you to create free reports for your community. Nobody knows the neighbourhood as well as you and that’s because it’s your job to know everything there is to know. Having a VA to help you collect data and transform it into free reports for the community can help you position yourself as the top real estate agent in the area.
#31 Help you build a preferred vendor database. Building connections is key in expanding your sphere of influence. Creating mutually beneficial relationships with vendors and contractors can help you get recommended more often. Your real estate virtual assistant can help you find and reach out to top vendors in your area who you can recommend and who could recommend your services to their clients.
#32 Pitch your resume and experience to podcasters to get you invited as a guest. Showing people that publications, radio shows, and podcast producers turn to you for advice and comment is a great way to build your authority. If they don’t reach out to you, you can have your real estate virtual assistant reach out to them and pitch some topics you might want to discuss.
#33 Call buyers 30-60-90 days after the sale is closed to offer vendor details and ask about friends that might need a real estate agent. Showing that you still care about the buyers’ satisfaction after the deal is closed can really help you get new clients. Your real estate remote assistant can call (or remind you to call) past clients and ask for referrals.
#34 Order real estate postcards for you. Postcards are great for keeping your name top-of-mind in the community you’re targeting. Many real estate agents send around 8 to 9 postcards per year, so planning their content, design, printing and delivery can take some time. Luckily, this is another task you can delegate to your real estate virtual assistant.
#35 Identify opportunities to be mentioned in the local press or have a weekly/monthly column. Keeping an eye on the local press and blogs can be time-consuming, but getting your name published can help strengthen the ties with the community. Your real estate lead generation virtual assistant can help you find out when you could get those mentions and pitch story ideas in your name.
#36 Help you find a video editor and launch a video channel dedicated to your community. Being the go-to source for real estate info on the neighbourhood will boost your business. Published regularly, video content can help you achieve that.
#37 Find local lenders for you to partner up with and cross-reference your services. Many first-time home buyers have no idea if they should first talk to a lender or with a real estate agent. Partnering up with a trustworthy lender could be beneficial for both of you.
#38 Find local real estate attorneys for you to win over. Attorneys must have no incentive to make a recommendation beyond looking out for their client’s best interest. Real estate attorneys are usually prohibited from receiving any form of compensation from recommending a real estate agent or broker. They can only recommend real estate agents to clients because they are indeed looking for their best interest. That is why you should make an effort to prove that you could be a great real estate agent for the attorney’s clients.
#39 Find homeowner and property owner associations with whom you could offer free content for their newsletter. Using HOAs and POAs to get your name and messages in front of people living in certain communities has its benefits, so it might pay off to have your real estate virtual assistant dig for organisations’ contact details.
#40 Find garage sales in the neighbourhood where you could stop by to mingle with people from the community. Scanning local websites and blogs, as well as Facebook events, your real estate virtual assistant can find events that bring that community together and add them to your calendar.
#41 Find local events where you could be a speaker in the city’s real estate market. This is a great opportunity to connect with new clients. Also, generating those media mentions for your name next to your city/neighbourhood’s name will help you position yourself and drive traffic to your owned digital assets like websites, blogs, and social media accounts.
#42 Answer real estate themed questions on local web forums. Your real estate lead generation remote assistant can find the questions, collect them into Excel spreadsheets, add their suggested answers, get them approved by you, and then publish them under your name, helping you generate more leads with no money spent on advertising.
#43 Create a LinkedIn group dedicated to professionals in your area. Constantly expanding your sphere of influence is going to automatically expand the number of calls you’ll receive from potential clients. Another easy way of doing so is to become the creator of spaces (like a LinkedIn group) where people from your community can meet online and interact.
Real estate virtual assistants can also help you with appointment setting and back-end tasks, so you could charm your current clients and attract new ones more easily.
#44 Prepare weekly updates on residential properties. Clients can get very anxious about what’s going on with the property they’re selling. If you’re too busy to keep everyone in the loop at all times, this might be something your real estate VA can help you with. You definitely don’t want your clients to complain about you online.
#45 Prepare monthly updates on industrial and commercial properties. Commercial property owners know that finding a buyer for them isn’t as easy as for a residential property, but they do expect updates. Your VA can help you send them.
#46 Showing software management. No matter what software you’re using for scheduling showings, your real estate virtual assistant can learn to use it and save you some time.
#47 Create market snapshot documents based on dqnews.com, RPR reports, homedisclosure.com, etc. Creating reports for potential clients from scratch can take a long time. Working on reports generated by your real estate VA with the help of online resources can take far less.
#48 Chase other agents to get contracts signed. Getting a hold of other agents, attorneys or inspectors can be a drag, but your real estate remote assistant can follow-up as many times as needed to get them to return your calls and emails.
#49 Help recruit a transactions coordinator. When your agency is finally ready for a full-time real estate transactions coordinator, your real estate VA can help you recruit by drafting the job description, publishing job posts, collecting resumes, etc.
#50 Order yard signs/bandit signs. Once you have the templates approved, your real estate VA can handle the process of ordering new ones for each new property.
#51 Order business cards. Your virtual assistant can search for inspiration for new business card designs, source designers, find the best print shop, and place the order.
#52 Find a lawyer to go over your cold calling script. If you plan on using calling agents to generate leads, be sure you have an attorney to go over the script, to make sure you’re not liable. For example, in the United States, you need a real estate license to make calls to property owners, but you can have Philippine-based telemarketers call landlines if the call takes the form of a survey asking people questions like “if you’d ever move from where you currently live, why would that be?” or “have you ever thought about selling your house?”.
#53 Research comparable listed properties in the community. Having all the info you need already processed by your real estate virtual assistant can also save you time.
#54 Draft a marketing plan for selling the listings. With a bit of training on how you usually market properties, your lead generation real estate remote assistant will be able to draft plans for new properties.
#55 Review and prepare documents for your team. Every team is different – with its own work process, quirks, and needs. In time, your real estate virtual assistant will get used to all of that and adapt their services to what your team needs.
#56 Get quotes from home stagers, property inspectors, etc. From time to time, you can ask your real estate remote assistant to ask for cost estimates for local service providers. That’s how you can make sure you’re always getting the best deal.
#57 Prepare data for entering it on the MLS. Having access to the description of the fields that need to be completed on the MLS, your real estate virtual assistant can prepare the data to be entered.
#58 Create a property brochure draft. Using the data already collected, your real estate VA can create a property brochure draft based on an existing template.
#59 Manage the listings and update the info as needed. Keeping your listings updated speaks volumes about your professionalism, so don’t let your website collect dust. Have your virtual assistant update the listings, tweet, and post on Facebook about them.
#60 Help you promote an open house. Making sure the right people show up is simple when you advertise the open house in the right place. Unfortunately, sometimes this means choosing mediums that don’t reach many people so you need to use more of them to keep your targeting on point.
#61 Enter data in CRMs. Your CRM software can make you money, but you have to feed it fresh contacts. Have your VA make sure no lead gets left behind.
#62 Help you recruit new calling agents. If you want to take the cold calling route to finding motivated sellers, a Philippine-based remote assistant can help you source for companies that can help and ask them for cost estimates.
#63 Help you source a developer to launch your own IDX website. There are plenty of IDX solutions out there, but you need an experienced developer to help you take advantage of the best one.
#64 Update listing marketing websites. Having a website for each new property you’re selling is a great idea, but updating all of them can take too much time. This is another task you can delegate to your real estate VA.
#65 Calculate the cost per lead and a client’s lifetime value. Knowing how much you’re spending to bring in the clients and how much value they bring can help you make better decisions.
#66 Find out advertising costs for local radio and tv networks. If you feel like your agency might need a visibility boost, besides what online marketing can offer, you can always check out more traditional advertising channels.
#67 Search for real estate coaching videos and create summaries for the real estate agent. With so many amazing real estate business coaches posting their videos on YouTube there’s never enough time to watch all of them. Your real estate VA can follow your preferred specialists and create actionable summaries for you.
#68 Research and come up with objections for training purposes. Objections are part of the life of a real estate agent. You must always be ready to handle them, and having your virtual assistant help you identify the objections one might have before a meeting or a call can be highly beneficial.
#69 Research and present door knocking scripts to the agent. Door-knocking scripts are available online, you just need to dig deep to find them, and that is one of the perfect tasks for a remote assistant. This will help you experiment and find THE script for you.
#70 Research new lead generation techniques. Marketers are very inventive and sometimes some of their newest techniques get applied in real estate too. If your real estate lead generation remote assistant can keep an eye on top trends, you might be among the first real estate agents to implement new strategies, offering you a great advantage.
#71 Identify top real estate business coaches for you to contact. If you feel you need to speed up your business growth, there are some amazing real estate coaches out there. Ask your VA to find you all the awesome mentors in your state and compare their backgrounds. You’ll be able to select your favourites without wasting hours upon hours on the internet.
#72 Update your LinkedIn profile with new listings and connect with new people. You don’t have to reach out and post content, that is something your VA can do so you can spend your time on what brings in the revenue – being there when leads react/reach out to you.
#73 Help you track expenses across your organisation. Knowing where the money goes, you’ll be able to make budgetary adjustments and cut down on useless expenses.
#74 Check that all your bills are paid on time. When you visit a real estate agent’s website and you’re greeted with an “account suspended” message you start having your doubts about them. The reputation of a great real estate agent can be eroded by something as simple as not remembering to pay a $10 bill.
#75 Track your competitors’ real estate lead generation efforts. Knowing what your competitors are doing to generate their own leads, how much web traffic they’re generating, and more can help you make wiser decisions about your next steps. Your VA can track some of your competitors’ actions and keep you informed.
Depending on your specific needs, virtual assistants can be trained to perform various other tasks. We’ve seen VAs help businesses accelerate their growth and boost their profits and we’re sure they could also help you streamline your processes and increase your commissions.
If you have any questions about hiring full-time or part-time Philippine-based real estate virtual assistants, please contact us or just add your comment below.
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