Like most business-related activities, outsourcing real estate virtual assistants may appear simple at first, but there are a number of hazards to watch out for. Your new virtual assistant will definitely relieve some of your workload and give you more time to focus on your clients. But if you don't know all the potential drawbacks of hiring a remote virtual assistant, you risk making a poor choice that will cost you money, time, and a great deal of unneeded stress.

Therefore, it is crucial that you are aware of the major pitfalls associated with hiring a real estate VA, in order to better understand how to avoid them.

Common Pitfalls You Must Avoid While Hiring Real Estate VA

1. Flawed Expectations

Expecting sudden productivity boosts after hiring a real estate virtual assistant is a common mistake. Yes, having virtual assistants work for your business will save you money on wages, but many real estate agents or agencies anticipate that the VA they hire will be an expert at their position within a short period of time. In practice, most remote VAs face a steep learning curve to master the new skills that your work demands.

Setting reasonable expectations prior to the hiring process is essential in light of this. By choosing the appropriate expectations, you will increase your chances of hiring virtual assistants who are the best fit for the position. While recruiting virtual assistants from other countries, it is important to be aware of the different time zones, and you should take this into account when defining their job duties.

You must be patient and not view your virtual assistant as a quick remedy all your demands. Over time, they will improve their technical skills through work experience.

2. Improper Job Description

Avoid making the mistake of hiring a virtual assistant simply because it is fashionable and seems like every company has one. It is crucial to determine what tasks and services you require virtual assistants for. You must first understand the needs of your organization clearly. Often, many real estate agents and agencies fail to mention these needs explicitly in the job description. 

Many real estate agents and agencies create inadequate job descriptions, which leads to the hiring of ineffective virtual assistants. And the virtual assistants cannot be blamed if they don’t perform effectively in the future because based on the information in the job description, they submitted an application and were hired for the same.

Simply put, if you only have enough work for 10 hours per week, do not advertise for 15 hours per week; if you advertise for admin tasks, only assign tasks of the same nature. 

3. Unprepared for Cultural Differences

When hiring VAs, an aspect that is easily overlooked by many agents and agencies is the differences in cultures. When working with people from different geographical regions, cultural differences are obvious, but the impact of it may not be that obvious. Common practices in one culture may be totally uncommon in another. When such practices are undertaken, it might throw the VAs off guard. Since there won’t be face-to-face interactions in a remote setting, this might not be very frequent but it is always better to be careful about it.

People from different cultures may also have different working days. For example, Asian communities have many festivals and celebrations throughout the year. They even have celebratory occasions that last for 5-6 days. As such, they might need to take long holidays during those times. Hence, we cannot expect people to keep their work life ahead of their personal life and have them work during those times. So, solutions to this problem must be thought about beforehand. 

You can talk to your virtual assistants not just about work but about these matters and figure out their availability. Instead of having them work full-time during their festivals, you can have them work part-time or just call them on a need basis to complete a few urgent tasks.

4. Improper Planning for VA Training

Many agents and agencies outsource virtual assistant jobs, spend a day outlining their expectations to the new recruits, and then believe they are ready to go. This strategy is doomed to failure since virtual assistants require the same level of on-the-job training as other employees do. 

Real estate virtual assistants must receive training on using various web applications before they are expected to utilize them for work or to take part in virtual meetings. Since every agent or agency will also have internal software that is configured to meet its demands, a decent training program is undoubtedly required.

Additionally, if you don't give your VAs training continuously, they'll be more stressed out and more prone to make mistakes that could end up costing your company money. Planning and delivering high-quality training will be advantageous to both your business and your virtual assistant. Moreover, training sessions provide a good opportunity for the VAs to provide their feedbacks and suggestions which could be useful for you since they are the ones who do the actual work.

5. Micro Managing Everything

Giving up control of many parts of their job is still difficult for some real estate agents because they are used to doing things as they want it. So, it might be challenging to put your trust in someone else to complete the tasks after you hire a virtual assistant in that the way they do things might not align with how you do them. Or, you simply are habituated to doing all by yourself. 

However, you should be able to establish a positive working relationship with your virtual assistant if you have outstanding levels of open communication. If you don't give your virtual assistant the time and room to grow into their position, hiring them will be meaningless.

They will become too terrified to carry out their duties as a result of your recent comments regarding certain work they performed if you consistently undermine their work for the wrong reasons.