March 2005

Looking for a Niche? Try Real Estate!

by Penny Sullivan

If you are a VA looking for a niche, take a look at the real estate industry.  High productivity Realtors® reach a point where they cannot sell any more property without hiring an assistant to handle all the details necessary to reach a successful closing of the transactions. There are many tasks that must be accomplished and they must be tracked to ensure that the person responsible completes them in a timely manner. This is where a good VA can come in. With the appropriate software tools, the VA can track all the steps needed to complete the transaction, communicate with all the parties involved and allow the customer to see the status of the transaction across the web. The advantages to the Realtor® include:

   1. they do not have an employee that needs to be trained,

   2. they do not have to purchase a PC,

   3. they do not have to have the person full time.

Being able to pay for only the services received is much more cost effective for the agent.

The software used by the VA should be a comprehensive role-based transaction management system that is accessible over the Internet by all the participants in the transaction. You, as the VA, control the transaction, assigning and monitoring the tasks that need to be accomplished to reach a smooth, successful closing. You create action plans are totally editable to fit each Realtor’s® way of doing business, and if a date is changed, all dates are automatically recalculated. You are given a wide range of choices to contact the parties, including text to voice with responses back to you. All documents are uploaded to a website to be viewed by the participants in the transaction. There should be e-mail within the program for communications among the participants, and documents should be able to be e-mailed out of the system when appropriate. Each participant should be given a secure website on which they can view all documents within the transaction that are deemed appropriate for them, controlled by you, the Coordinator. There should  be a log maintained for each transaction that documents the tasks and notes associated with that transaction. Listings should be able to be entered into the system and be given an action plan as well. Thus marketing of the listings is handled in an organized fashion.

Realtors® may also need you to do marketing and leads management for them. VAU offers classes to train VAs to become certified Real Estate Virtual Assistants. This is a growing need and should provide you a great source of revenue.

About the GURU NETworks

GURU NETworks, a provider of transaction management, has just launched a new program that provides VAs with a lower setup and training fee than our other customers, as well as a lower per transaction cost than we give to our other customers. After you are certified, we also list your company on our website for Realtors® to find you when they are looking for assistance.

About the Author

Penny Sullivan is the Vice President of Business Development for GURU NETworks, Inc. She has been working with the real estate industry for over ten years. She can be reached by calling 1-800-GURUnet and pressing 3 or on the web at www.gurunet.net.