Becoming a Virtual RE & REI Assistant

[Laticha Jones]

My Quick Background

Over the past year I have been trying to pass the national portion of the real estate exam, and I have now flunked it 5 times (and I'm planning to take it 3 more times before I give up). I have a masters degree in Real Estate Finance and I have worked for the Department of Housing and I the Department of Public Works. I do Tax Prep and Bookkeeping on the side for a local accountant, and for 2 years I worked as a property scout (Bird Dog) for a local investor.  The whole purpose of all the education was to become a real estate investor and create a property management company. Flunking the National portion of the Real Estate Exam has me feeling defeated and like it wasn't in Gods plan for me to be in Property Management. I have noooo desire to work as a Sales agent, even though I love analyzing local RE Projects and DEV trends.  

My Soul Search

So after some soul searching I realized that my education was not being utilized and decided I wanted to work as a virtual real estate assistant. I have attended several workshops and seminars discussing how to best utilize a RE Virtual Assistant (social media posting, checking your emails, updating CRM software etc.), and I am taking a class on how to become a RE Assistant. I feel like a local assistant could be doing so my much more. 

My Vision

An Independent RE Back Office Support Company that offers:

~Quickbooks and Sage Bookkeeping/Set up

~Property Analytics & Research

~Property Management Support (Until I'm a realtor I'm limited to what I an do)

The Tag line on my website says " When a Virtual Assistant just isn't enough"

*eventually I will hire employees*

My Dilemma

I Want to Be More Than an Overseas VA. I have been brushing up on my Argus Valuation Skills, Esri Business Analysis, and restudying my Accounting Books. Then last week I mentioned this all to the investor that I worked with to get her opinion on how to market myself. Meaning should I market my self as an Advanced Local and Virtual RE and REI Assistant or should I market myself as a Real Estate Research Assistant.

Then she kind of chuckles and says, "Tish if an investor can't do his own accounting and property management, they don't need to be in the industry." So said to her every time I'm at these various REI meetings and Guru training I'm running into people who aren't running accurate property valuations. They are utilizing local real estate agents, to run market reports that really don't give complete forecasts. Then I realized that she was one of them, because honestly I worked as a bird dog for her, but she frequently calls on me to research a property,or go pull a permit. I also realized that she didn't know much about commercial real estate.

Lastly I explained that I really wasn't planning to exclusively work with RE Investors. When a doctor wants to relocate his business, I want to be the person he calls for property or demographic research, or I want to be the person a local broker calls when he needs help with forecasting. My investor friend just thought this was all "nuts" she said people need Virtual Assistants to handle back office work not research. 

My Question

How should I market my myself as an advanced real estate assistant? Or should I simply market myself as a Real Estate Research Company? Or should I scrap the whole idea, go left and do what my husband wants? Which would be to concentrate on staring a Property Management Company, that also provides bookkeeping services?  All of these Ideas are great, because I love property management as well, I'm just not as trained in Property Management as I am in Accounting and Research.

There ya have it,

Thanks for reading all this any suggestions good or bad are welcome.