All real estate businesses work within a strict employee budget, which is one reason they outsource to remote workers.
However, you must evaluate what tasks you want to outsource and how much hiring a virtual real estate assistant will cost. The cost of hiring varies depending on what duties you outsource and the skills of the person you hire.
This article will help you understand the fundamental factors that affect the cost of hiring and what you need to consider.
Let’s look at all the essential elements you need to implement before you hire the right virtual assistant for your business needs.
1 – Hourly Rates
The role of a real estate virtual assistant is becoming increasingly popular with business owners.
However, hourly pay rates vary between industries, the experience level, skill, and task requirements.
If you hire an experienced real estate virtual assistant, their hourly rate will be higher because their tasks will be more complex.
When the person providing the virtual assistant services is based in a developing country, you can pay them a lower rate.
Also, when you hire a real estate virtual assistant with a higher skill set who specialises in graphic design or marketing, they will command a higher hourly rate than a virtual assistant providing data entry administrative tasks.
It is also advantageous to your company when you hire virtual assistants with experience in social media management, real estate marketing and database management.
2 – Project Rates
Instead of charging an hourly rate for their services, some experienced virtual assistants prefer to charge a project rate.
For example, running a social media marketing campaign may require hiring a more experienced virtual assistant on an as-and-when-needed basis.
There are advantages and disadvantages to this method of payment.
The advantage is that you only hire specialist VA as and when you need them.
However, the disadvantage of hiring a real estate virtual assistant who charges project rates for specialist skills like digital marketing is that they will usually charge an inflated rate.
Sometimes you can’t avoid this, but if your real estate business is to make maximum profit, you need to train your virtual assistant service worker to be able to do the specialised tasks you require.
Training will cost money, but gaining an experienced virtual assistant long-term will be highly beneficial.
3 – Full-Time vs. Part-Time
Virtual assistant costs can spiral out of control if you are not careful; this is why it is advisable to hire part-time to start with.
For example, full-time virtual assistants cost double that of a part-time worker when you may not have the workload to give them.
Most virtual assistants are highly adaptable and can take on additional tasks when required. For example, if you have neglected to do admin tasks because you were busy focusing on important tasks, then you can quickly increase the workload for a short period.
However, most real estate agent business owners find that when they hire a dedicated assistant, they can’t do without them and upscale them to full-time hours.
4 – Domestic vs. International
Real estate virtual assistants are based globally, so it is essential to know the pros and cons of hiring someone based in Australia against someone based in the Philippines.
Virtual assistant cost, even for data entry, can prove expensive when hiring virtual assistants in Australia because they command a higher hourly rate.
Hiring someone based internationally in the Philippines or India will cost you less because their country’s living cost is lower than those domestically.
Some real estate agents prefer to hire domestic virtual workers because there are no language or cultural barriers to overcome. As a result, they are more likely to settle into the role quicker.
However, someone based in The Philippines may be advantageous, especially if you have essential clients in that country.
5 – Additional Costs
When hiring a virtual assistant, consider the additional cost you incur.
When you hire a remote administrative assistant, you must spend money on time-tracking software such as time doctor to track your VAs progress.
Most business owners will factor the additional cost into what their virtual assistants charge before they commit to hiring them.
You can keep costs down by implementing similar free tools into your business before upgrading to fully paid software. Additionally, it is a good idea to contact the software company to see if they have any free trials you could take advantage of or at least a discounted rate for a set period.
6 – Return on Investment
Saving costs is the main benefit for hiring a virtual assistant. If the person you hire can do several tasks in a set amount of time while coming way within your budget, then this is an advantage.
However, you must fully understand how to calculate the return on investment.
Here are four simple steps:
Step 1: Identify any improvement that has been made from you outsourcing mundane tasks to your VA.
Step 2: Now evaluate how much it has cost to hire your VA against how much time it has saved your full-time employee from doing all the data work.
Step 3: Convert the time saved into a monetary value. For example, your in-house worker may have attracted more clients to your business as they had more time to focus on their specialised technical skills.
Step 4: If the overall costs of hiring a VA are less than the additional money brought in by in-house employees concentrating on making important phone calls to close deals with new clients, you have a positive return on investment.
Call Us To Manage Your VA Hiring Needs
Hiring a virtual assistant can be fraught with many pitfalls, especially if you need more experience in hiring.
The last thing you want to do is hire a virtual assistant who has yet to gain experience in the real estate agent industry.
If you’d like to know how to find a good real estate VA, call us to discover how we can save you money, time and stress by looking after all your VA needs.
Our virtual assistant agency experts can advise you on what rate of pay you need to be paying for the tasks you need to do to suit your business model.
Let us source, hire, train and manage the right remote worker for you.
