Virtual Assistant to Run Comps

[Stephen Lee]

Hey all,

I've seen a lot of people in the industry using virtual assistants. Most are wholesalers who have high call volumes or Realtors who have a lot of easy to complete busy work. My issue is that I mostly spend all day running comps, putting in offers, or driving properties that I've identified as good properties.

For those of you who have used a VA in the past, have you had them submit offers for you? My concern with this is the fact that it's kind of a big deal if it gets messed up. Submitting it for the wrong amount, not including the correct contingencies, etc. I also don't even know if that's legal or not... (I'm in Maryland by the way)

I mainly would like to use him/her to run comps for me. 5 minutes a comp, 75-150 leads a day excluding leads from my marketing, you do the math. Whatever that comes out to, it's too difficult for me to do myself, but I'm also not at the point where I feel comfortable taking someone on full time. For those of you that have had VAs run comps for you, what are some things that you had told them that helped them grasp the art of figuring out an ARV? I realize that it's not as easy as just telling someone once and that's it, that it'll be a learning process, but I'd appreciate any advice. I also don't know if it's legal (again in MD) to give out my MLS login information to them in order to allow them to run comps. Maybe people get around this by subscribing to other services like FlipComp or Privy for their virtual assistants?

Again, any advice at all on the matter would be appreciated. Any suggested sources for VAs, countries, what you paid, what you had them do, etc

Thanks!

[Andrew Michael]

@Stephen Lee

We use VA's for comps and BPO's. You could have him draft up the offers and submit them through you for a while and see how that goes. Then if he is doing a good job transition yourself out of the equation.

Personally I would want to be involved in the actual offer piece of it but that's just me.  I may have a slight issue with micromanaging and giving up responsibilities haha, so I just feel better when I have reviewed docs and pieces we send out to clients. 

As far as the learning process I believe there are companies that specialize in providing real estate VA's but I could be making that up. Comps are fairly easy to teach. The last person I trained on comps is very accurate after only a few days of coaching and about a week or so of practice however these are pretty straight forward comps.

In order of importance I do, Style of home, square footage, bed/bath count, basement comparison, then I move on to things like lot size, on or off street parking, garage, etc. I also try to get 3 sold comps, 3 active comps, and 3 under contract, within the last 360 days or so as close to the subject home as possible. With all that data we come up with price and try to ball park it. A decent VA should have no issues doing this.