260: Five property tasks that you can outsource to a virtual assistant

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Enlisting the help of virtual assistant (VA) is one of the easiest and most effective ways to scale-up your business. A virtual assistant allows you to focus on higher value tasks, whether that’s sourcing deals or raising finance. With an abundance of freelancer sites to choose from today, such as Upwork, Fiverr and Peopleperhour, it has never been simpler to find a VA suited to your business’s needs. With that in mind, here are five property tasks you might find it beneficial to outsource.

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Property management

If you’ve never used a virtual assistant before, property management tasks are some of the simplest to try outsourcing. You can pretty much outsource anything related to property management to a VA, with the exception of tasks that require face-to-face contact like exchanging keys. During the initial referencing process, a VA can issue right-to-rent guides, take care of the receipt of payslips, bank statements and landlord references, as well as send contracts out, check deposits and issue rent reminders. These tasks don’t require a VA to possess any specific skill-set and it’s possible to start by outsourcing one task and then build-up, as your confidence in outsourcing increases.

Project management

Pretty much all the admin-side of project management can be outsourced to a VA. They can maintain budgets based on invoices from trades people, arrange quotes for utility connections and apply for address alterations in the case of projects involving the conversion of commercial buildings into multiple apartments. Again, none of these tasks require specific skills, but they are very time-consuming and prevent you from devoting your time to more interesting and valuable things.

Bookkeeping

Bookkeeping tasks straddle both project and property management. Likely, you’ll not find them the most fulfilling aspect of your daily tasks and they’re super easy to outsource. If you try and work with a virtual assistant with experience of completing bookkeeping tasks, they’ll likely have ideas about better utilising software for your needs, making the entire bookkeeping process less arduous for you.

Sourcing

Recent podcast guests, Maygreen Investments, shared how they use a virtual assistant to simplify their property sourcing process. The innovative method involves getting their VA to create a shortlist of properties for viewing, according to a set of criteria that includes ROI targets and specific distances from key amenities such as railway stations, town centres and hospitals. Their VA searches through properties on websites like Rightmove and then produces a spreadsheet of potential options. Before Rob and Sarah from Maygreen even view a property, they know the minimum and maximum price they can offer. Through outsourcing the first part of the property sourcing process they have not only speeded it up, but also improved the efficiency of their viewings. For every ten properties they now view, one turns into a deal.

Social media, branding and graphic design

Whether you like it or not, how you present your company and brand is an integral part of property that everyone needs to be looking at. If you’re not creative or would rather be spending your time on more concrete value-adding activities like property sourcing, then a VA with particular experience in writing or design can help out. Someone with graphic design experience could prepare your brand colours, logo and images for social media platforms. Blog posts that build your local expertise can be issued to copywriters, to research and write-up.

However you choose to use a virtual assistant, one thing is for sure: enlisting their help or expertise is one of the most effective ways to free-up your time and devote more energy to high-value tasks that allow you to upscale quickly. Outsourcing needn’t only be employed on a professional level either. It’s also possible to outsource your personal life, whether that be your cleaning, laundry or even meal-preparation. This might be too far for some, but it depends on what suits you.

In the meantime, we’ve set up a discussion on the IPI Community so that you can share what tasks you’re outsourcing with other investors.