Around The Clock Solutions

As a real estate virtual assistant part of the listing coordination services I provide is posting my client’s home listings on the many internet listing sites, Craig’s List being one of them. I was alerted today that someone was taking real estate home listing posts and changing  them into rentals and stealing rent money from people. A woman who responded to one of my clients listings received a suspicious email response and looked further into it. She tracked down my client and alerted her to the scam. Before I could get on Craig’s List to find out what was going on, my client called me again. Someone had just gone to the address of the listing, wanting to move in. They had paid someone on Craig’s List the rent money for immediate  occupancy to this property. I contacted “Abuse” at Craig’s List” and within five minutes the post was removed. This is terrible for the real estate professionals who post their listings on Craig’s List.

I have now added another task to my listing coordination checklist, monitor and check internet property posts daily. Even a daily Google search of the address would help to alert you of something like this that may be happeneing. I have Google Alerts set up for every one of my clients listings, you would be surprised as to what comes back through those alerts.

I’m always looking for new free tools and gadgets that will help my clients or me save time when working on their tasks, and I have an arsenal of them now. So, in my quest to begin committing to blogging I am going to start blogging about some of these great free tools and resources that can be used by real estate virtual assistants and real estate professionals to help save time in their businesses.

Today’s tool is a great free program that can be used by real estate agents when requesting a testimonial from a client. It’s always a good idea to offer “something of value” when asking someone to do something for you. I always provide my clients’ prospects and past clients with something that they can use in every communication with them, no canned crap.

This is a program that helps to create a home inventory and what better time to start this project than when moving into a new home. Requesting testimonials is something often over looked by real estate agents, but so very important to the continued growth of their business. A real estate virtual assistant can handle this task very easily for their clients. It can be sent out to look as if it came directly from the agent if the agent chooses to have the image that he/she does everything personally or it can be sent from the real estate virtual assistant portraying the “Team” image. This is solely a personal preference and is decided upon when I begin to work with a new real estate client.

I have a system for my clients that I handle this task for. We spend a few minutes, one time, discussing it when we begin working together. After that, they don’t need to think about it again and their testimonials are taken care of. Sometimes a new client will review my procedure and not want anything changed, at that point they are done and can cross it off of their lists forever.

When we begin our working relationship I create a template for the testimonial, along with a cover letter and I brand it with their colors and contact information. As soon as a property closes the cover letter is personalized and emailed to the home buyer/seller or snail mailed, along with a self-addressed stamped envelope, if they don’t have email. It’s important to make things as easy and simple as possible when asking someone to do something for you.

The cover letter thanks the home buyer/seller for allowing the agent the opportunity to provide services to them and tells them how important they are, even though the closing is over. It includes a few tips about being a new home owner, documents they should safely keep, home improvement tips, etc. and then lets them know the next page has questions about their home/buying selling experience with the agent, the testimonial. This cover letter also clearly explains what the agent is asking for, why and what they should do with it. It might sound like common sense, but if people are not clearly instructed they will not respond.

And that’s it, I mark it up on my calendar for 2 weeks after the email or mail date. The entire thing is sent out again if we haven’t received a response. Now for the free Home Inventory software that I spoke about. The product information would be included on the cover letter also. By providing something like this it let’s the home buyer/seller know that the real estate agent is still thinking about them and wants to continue to be their real estate agent for life.

KNOW YOUR STUFF HOME INVENTORY

http://www.knowyourstuff.org/

Triple Play

I’m at my first real estate convention here in Atlantic City, Triple Play 2007, this week and I have to say “I’m loving it”. The information that I’m coming away with everyday and the knowledge, is priceless. There are so many vendors here that I never knew existed, it’s just amazing. One vendor that really caught my attention is “The Wise Agent“. This program looks like the REALTORS® dream in contact management, marketing and organization all in one, kind of like a “simple” TP7i. From what I saw in the demo, this program does everything TP7i can do, but in a much easier to understand way and without the contract commitment. This program seems to be extremely virtual assistant friendly, which means the virtual assistant can set it up and implement it with very little effort on the agents part. I’ll be checking the program out in the next day or so and will be back to report my findings. Looks like a complete real estate business management system from what I’ve seen so far.

Real estate virtual assistant

Realty Times is a real estate news website that I find full of great information every day. Blanche Evans writes great articles and she really sums up all the facts about a real estate virtual assistant in the following article.

The Virtual Assistant
by Blanche Evans

According to Internet trainer, Allan F. Hainge, real estate agents should be spending very little time at a keyboard, meaning that their job is listing and/or selling real estate.

That’s where a virtual assistant can come in. Virtual assistants can work for one agent or more than one agent performing a wide variety of real estate-related chores that will save the agent time and money, all while working out of their homes.

The virtual assistant takes the role of the temp and elevates it to the status of entrepreneur. Because the virtual assistant  is self-employed, bills only the hours work or by tasks completed, and is dependent on referrals and steady work flow from existing clients, s/he can be the perfect solution for a busy agent.

Virtual assistants offer several advantages over a paid employee, with all the benefits of outsourcing. They save the agent employee tax and benefits problems while demonstrating the loyalty and steadiness of a company employee.

As more agents move their marketing and communications to the Internet, virtual assistants become more and more the obvious solution to staffing problems. With skills such as graphic arts design or editing, they can be useful to a real estate agent.

What equipment should the virtual assistant have?

A virtual assistant should have all or most of the following: a recent model IBM-compatible computer; a top email and email merge program; a contact/office manager program such as Top Producer; a working knowledge of the most popular office programs such as Microsoft Word and Power Point; familiarity with Internet idiosyncrasies (such as how to write emails to AOL users which is not as easy as you would think;) and other office equipment such as a FAX machine, high speed Internet access, if available; familiarity with the local MLS information access program and its features; the ability to research information, upload photos and stitch them into presentations; familiarity with virtual tour technology; and more, depending on the types of tasks the virtual assistant is hired to do.

A virtual assistant can be in town or work several states away, in some cases. A virtual assistant can be on call or paid a weekly salary like any other employee.

What types of work do virtual assistants do for agents?

Virtual assistants can be the agent’s techie, or marketing assistant; it all depends on what the agent needs.

North Carolina radio personality and broker Jerry Fowler, www.jerryfowler.com, has an assistant named Amy who lives several states away, yet she handles all of his advertising and web site design and management.

Amy handles the following for Fowler:

• Tips for newspaper
• Weekly classified ads
• Weekly display ads
• Weekly flyer for radio show
• Weekly flyer for BNI leads club
• Weekly flyer (4 up) of listings faxed to Realtors
• Monthly ad for real estate books
• Monthly newsletter
• Monthly prospecting from real estate books
• Flyers for listings
• Just listed/Just sold postcards
• Develop new FSBO programs
• Marketing pieces for Expired listings
• Create marketing material for open house parties new to the neighborhood for buyer reps)
• Relocation packets
• All web sites updated
• Press releases
• E-zine articles

Fowler pays Amy on commission, based on the number of closings each month. “The advantage to me is that I don’t have to provide office space for her, I don’t have to pay her a fixed salary or provide insurance, vacation pay, or sick pay,” says Fowler. “The advantage to her is that she gets to work at home. She doesn’t have to fight traffic going to and from work, she doesn’t have to buy a fancy wardrobe, and she doesn’t have to abide by a rigid, 9 to 5 schedule. Many people enjoy having a flexible work schedule.”

Amy can handle work from several agents, so she’s still able to enjoy a nice paycheck every month, says Fowler, and thanks to her laptop, she doesn’t miss out on vacations.

What do virtual assistants get paid?

Fowler pays Amy a flat rate based on number of closings, but another agent might offer a flat monthly rate with bonuses for certain production levels. Other virtual assistants charge an hourly fee of $15 to $35, according to Staffcentrix president and CEO, Christine C. Durst, www.staffcentrix.com. The more the virtual assistant has to offer, the higher salary she or he can command.

“As cable Internet, wireless Internet, and other broadband solutions grow in the marketplace, the VA will be well-placed to leverage the additional communications tools and grow even closer to the small business or startup client,” says Durst.

Where do virtual assistants get found?

Durst’s company places virtual assistants in a number of industries. Another source, The International Virtual Assistants Association,  also has a comprehensive directory of virtual assistants.

Other virtual assistants get started by notifying local brokers that they are looking to get into the real estate industry and would like to assist a top producer with their technology and Internet solutions.