In the Real Estate Industry, How Much Is Your Time Really Worth?

We have all heard that Real Estate gives you the freedom to choose your own schedule, have flexibility, and ability to pick your own clients while making decent money. Well, you got it all wrong. From meetings, appointments, open houses, and so on, it is never an easy task, that’s where hiring a VA comes in. A typical Real Estate Agent is usually selling 15 homes a year. So, to sell that many homes, the Realtor needs to generate business, attend appointments, negotiate contracts, order signs, print flyers, create Marketing Campaigns, update Social Media, write and respond to numerous emails, make prospecting calls, respond to offers, pick up the keys, meet with clients, respond to texts, remain sane, and not to burn out. Have we mentioned attending soccer practices and PTA meetings yet? Sounds familiar?

The typical answer to the problem is to hire an assistant.

How much time do you have to spend to train your assistant? How much money is it going to cost you? Will your assistant be going to be an asset and not a liability? Can he or she handle your clients’ inquiries? A lot of agents are scared to pull the trigger on hiring help because there are a lot of unknowns and they are not sure if they can afford one. With the globalization of the world industries and e-commerce, more and more of high performing agents hire Virtual Assistants (VAs as they are referred to in the industry) in order to delegate non-revenue producing tasks to them. Once you do that, you can free up so much of your time and can concentrate on your job as a Realtor, which is to meet clients, negotiate contracts and close sales. You will have more time to do that and obviously, your production will improve.

What are the benefits of hiring a Real Estate Virtual Assistant compared to an In-House Assistant?

Cost is the most important. Typically, an in-house assistant will cost you $25/hour with benefits and payroll taxes. Whereas, a VA will cost you less than $10 per hour, which would be less than most State’s minimum wage. If you spend less money on your VA to do the same job as you would have to do yourself, the cost per hour of your work increases and your time becomes more valuable. As a Realtor, your time will be worth $1000 per hour instead of $10 per hour. Delegated out to another person the job that costs S10 per hour.

What are some disadvantages of hiring a VA?

Besides the fact that you won’t have the person sitting in your office, there aren’t any. As Virtual Assistants are working remotely from different locations, they are available when you are. Savvy agents value their time as this is the most valuable asset that we have. They do not want to waste it on doing small tasks that they can easily delegate to their VAs.