Need RE experience to be an REVA?

[AmandaB]

Do you feel that someone could be a valuable VA with no Real Estate Experience? I have Insurance experience (P& C) and of course Executive Admin Experience but didn't know if RE Agents would want a VA with RE experience.
THanks

[Your Virtual Wizard]

Well, you can work for any small business owner (including RE) performing many admin services.

It is my belief, that if you want to handle real estate transaction coordination, you would need real estate experience. In fact, most RE agents and brokers would ask that you have that experience. There are programs available for real estate which are specific to this industry such as Top Producer. Agents and brokers would expect a transaction coordinator to know these types of programs.

What is it that you want to do in RE? If your specialty is working with photos, helping with leads, posting to varying RE sites, maintaining websites, creating brochures you wouldn't necessarily need RE experience to do this type of work. However, there are many VAs who have real estate experience that can do the admin work and the coordination work.

Have you marketed your services to the insurance industry?

Janine

[AmandaB]

No, I haven't yet marketed my services to Insurance. I am still working on the niche area I want to reach out to. I just thought on the RE that I could assist with Database management and the such. I have really STRONG skills in Access and Excel. I might still approach them but perhaps now with more cautions and less expectations than I would have before.

[Your Virtual Wizard]

Amanda,

I wasn't trying to discourage you. I didn't know you wanted to use Access and Excel which can be used in any industry, really. I thought you wanted to do real estate transaction coordination work.

I'm sure that a RE agent or broker could utilize your database management skills. In fact, that could be something really good...you could offer to consolidate leads for an agent into Excel to be used for a newsletter or a mailing. Or you could take business cards and create a nice spreadsheet.

Janine

[D_Victoria_Virtual_Assistance]

Hi Amanda,

You can certainly assist a Real Estate agent with some aspects of their business without being a REVA. Prior to starting my own business, I worked as an Office Administrator for a real estate office. I had no prior knowledge about Real Estate before I started. While you most certainly need knowledge and understanding of real estate transactions, there are items like contact management, as well as, helping with some basic marketing tasks like creating home flyers that agents tend to make available at Open Houses, that you can do.

If you are new to the RE industry, one way to get your feet wet and maybe even learn some other skills needed to assist an agent, is to subcontract for a VA that provides services to agents. Just some additional thoughts for you.

As an aside, if you check out the AVP podcast subforum here on the boards, there are some podcasts available where I interviewed REVAs.. you may want to take a listen to them for some more insight on providing services to Real Estate agents.

Here are the links to the podcasts:

http://www.virtualassistantforums.co...-part-one-9332

http://www.virtualassistantforums.co...reva-more-9918

[AmandaB]

Thank you This will be very helpful.

[Cathryn Jones]

I would recommend that you subcontract for a REVA to learn the programs that are commonly used by real estate agents. Subcontracting will also give you a chance to see if you like working in the real estate field. I would also encourage you to review unlicensed assistant laws for real estate assistants as VAs must abide by these. These rules can vary slightly from state to state.

It's a great niche...although I know I am biased!

Best wishes!

[cbjjwds]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, this is really sound advice. I'm also trying to niche myself as a REVA. I don't have much experience in RE, but am very interested in the industry. I've been an Executive Assistant for 14 years, so I though I could surely combine what I know with what I like.

[DTS Global Direct]

I did not have any REVA expir. before I started. I had 10 years expir. as a property manager for apartments. I had a friend that was a loan officer and I volunteered to help him process the loans for free 2 Saturday a months so I could get familar with contracts and I got my first job assisting a Broker and now I also assist an Investor. Its a complex but fun job.

[va4all]

In my views for any database management work any experience in RE may not be required, but to manage any RE transactional or related consulting and planning RE experience will always be desired from a VA.