The transaction work starts when the showings end.
A real estate virtual assistant takes over the coordination layer of the business: MLS entry and listing paperwork, contract-to-close transaction management, CRM cleanup and lead follow-up, and the marketing every listing needs. Rates run about $10 to $20 an hour for offshore or team-based support and $25 to $40 and up for US-based, real-estate-specific specialists. For most agents the rate matters less than the structure: commission income arrives in lumps, and payroll doesn't.
Start by separating the work by where it has to happen. Some of the job is physical and stays with you or someone local: putting the sign in the yard, letting the photographer in, hosting the open house, walking a nervous buyer through a second showing. And some of it is legally yours alone, because most states restrict unlicensed assistants from negotiating, showing property, or advising clients on contract terms. Check your state's rules before you delegate anything client-facing.
Everything else runs through a screen, and it's most of the job. The MLS, your CRM, the e-signature platform, the transaction checklist, the listing flyer, the follow-up sequence that's three months stale. That's the slice a virtual assistant takes, and it's the slice that keeps agents doing paperwork at 9pm after a full day of appointments.
Four buckets of work, none of which need a license.
Listing coordination
The pre-list checklist run end to end: scheduling the photographer and stager, entering the listing in the MLS, sending disclosures out for signature, ordering the sign and lockbox through your local vendor, pushing status changes, and chasing showing feedback so sellers hear something after every visit.
Transaction coordination
Contract to close: tracking every deadline, confirming earnest money landed, scheduling inspection and appraisal, chasing the title company and the lender, keeping the compliance file complete for your broker, and making sure nothing slides while you're out showing houses.
CRM and follow-up
Deduping and tagging the database, setting up drip sequences, responding to new leads fast with your scripts, logging open-house sign-ins, and keeping past-client touches going: home anniversaries, market updates, the check-in that gets you the referral two years later.
Listing and personal marketing
Listing descriptions, flyers and social graphics, just-listed and just-sold posts, single-property email blasts, cutting a walkthrough video into clips, and the monthly newsletter you've been meaning to restart since spring.
Notice the spread. Transaction coordination rewards process discipline and polite persistence. Listing marketing rewards a designer's eye and decent copy. CRM work rewards patience with data. Finding one assistant who's strong across all four buckets is rare, and it's the main reason a first VA hire disappoints: the person who never misses a deadline produces flyers you end up redoing yourself. Online stores hit the same wall with a different task list, as the virtual assistant for ecommerce guide covers, but in real estate the spread is baked into every single listing.
The license is for negotiating and showing. Most of what fills an agent's week doesn't need one.
An assistant's salary is fixed. Your income isn't.
An unlicensed real estate assistant on salary generally lands around $40,000 to $50,000 a year on the major job boards, call it $19 to $24 an hour. That's the sticker price. The real cost of an employee runs higher, commonly estimated at 1.25 to 1.4 times base salary once payroll taxes, benefits, software seats, equipment, and paid downtime are counted, which puts a full-time hire at roughly $4,200 to $5,800 a month all-in. The wider market rates are broken down in the virtual assistant cost guide; here's how the two structures compare for an agent specifically.
| Full-time in-house assistant | Flexible VA team | |
|---|---|---|
| Sticker price | $40,000 to $50,000 a year base salary | $340/week for 20 hours or $600/week for 40, plus a $250 one-time setup fee per worker |
| Real monthly cost | Roughly $4,200 to $5,800 fully loaded | About $1,360 (20 hours) or $2,400 (40 hours) |
| A slow month | Same paycheck either way | Scale hours down; no long-term contract |
| Skill coverage | One person's skill set | Admin, design, content, and web specialists behind one project manager |
| Signs, lockboxes, open houses | Yes, if they're local to you | No; physical tasks stay with you or a local vendor |
| Who manages the work | You: training, QA, coverage when they're out | A project manager assigns, coordinates, and checks the work |
The right-hand column is how Lil Assistance is built, and for agents the structure matters more than it does for most businesses because of how the money arrives. A March with three closings and a January with none are the same paycheck to a salaried assistant. With a flexible team you're at $340 a week for 20 hours ($17 an hour effective) or $600 a week for 40 ($15 an hour), plus the one-time $250 setup fee per worker, with no long-term contract, so the commitment can move with the market instead of betting a year of payroll on last spring's pipeline.
The team part is what answers the skills spread. You hand tasks to a project manager, who routes each one to the right specialist: transaction paperwork to an admin who lives in checklists, the listing flyer to an actual designer, the neighborhood email to a writer. In a heavy closing month your hours can lean almost entirely toward transaction coordination; in a quiet one they can shift to the database scrub and the marketing you've deferred all year. Two honest caveats. Nobody remote can sit your open house or install a lockbox. And the first few weeks are an investment, because the checklists living in your head have to be written down before anyone else can run them.
Hand it over in a deliberate order.
Don't hand a live transaction to a stranger on day one. The pattern that works is the same one laid out in what to delegate first: start with recurring, rule-based work where a mistake is recoverable, and expand as the checklists prove themselves.
- Weeks 1 and 2: the database and the inbox. Dedupe and tag the CRM, set up the follow-up drips, triage email into folders you actually check. Low stakes, immediately visible, and it forces your first SOPs into writing.
- Weeks 3 and 4: the next new listing. Hand over the pre-list checklist: photographer and stager scheduling, MLS input, disclosures out for signature, sign and lockbox ordered through your local vendor. You review everything before it goes live.
- Month 2: one transaction, shadowed. The assistant tracks deadlines and chases title, lender, and inspectors on a deal you're still watching closely. On the next contract, they run the file and you get status updates.
- Ongoing: the marketing rhythm. Just-listed and just-sold posts, the monthly newsletter, past-client touches on home anniversaries. It's the work that never feels urgent, and it's what feeds next year's pipeline.
What agents ask before they commit.
What is a real estate virtual assistant not allowed to do?
Anything your state defines as licensed activity. In most states an unlicensed assistant can't negotiate terms, show property, host an open house alone, interpret contract language for a client, or discuss your commission on your behalf. Rules vary by state, and some are strict about who can even discuss listing details with a prospect, so check your state real estate commission's guidance and keep client-facing judgment calls with the licensee: you.
How much does a real estate virtual assistant cost?
Roughly $10 to $20 an hour for offshore or team-based support and $25 to $40 and up for US-based, real-estate-specific assistants. Lil Assistance runs $340 a week for 20 hours or $600 a week for 40, which works out to $17 and $15 an hour, plus a one-time $250 setup fee per worker, with no long-term contract.
Should I hire a transaction coordinator instead?
If contract-to-close paperwork is your only bottleneck, a per-file transaction coordinator is a legitimate answer and often the cheaper one at low volume, since you pay per closing. A VA or a flexible team makes more sense once the pain spreads beyond transactions into your CRM, your marketing, and your calendar, because the same hours cover all of it.
Can a virtual assistant handle my lead follow-up and calls?
Inbound scheduling, lead qualification against your script, speed-to-lead texts and emails, and long-term nurture sequences all delegate well. What shouldn't leave your hands is the conversation that needs a licensee, like offer strategy. On coverage hours, confirm what your plan includes before promising callers a pickup window; weekend or evening coverage is typically a custom arrangement rather than a default.
How fast will this actually save me time?
Expect the first two or three weeks to cost time rather than save it, because the processes in your head have to become written checklists someone else can run. Most agents feel the shift somewhere in weeks three to six, once listing coordination and CRM work are running without daily input. Anyone promising relief on day one is skipping the handover step that makes the work reliable.
Put a team behind your next listing.
Start with 20 hours a week, move them where the deal flow is, and scale down when the market does. No long-term contract.