Recently I wrote a post, Adding Your Real Estate Listings To Facebook, which received a lot of attention. I thought you might want to take a look at the new Vflyer application for Facebook to market your listings. Of course, you have to have a Vflyer account. If you carry one or two listings, Vflyer is free. For larger inventories, monthly fees can run anywhere from $12.95 to $79.95.
Vflyer has it all over some of the other Facebook listing applications for many reasons:
Your contact info is prominently displayed at the top of the page
The listing information displayed is the Internet flyer you created with links to your information
The application can be installed on both your profile and your fan pages
It contains a slide show and a link to your real estate website on the first page of a multi-page flyer.
You can include an unlimited amount of links to your other online real estate marketing tools.
It includes a nice map.
And offers marketing for your other listings.
Interested in Vflyer, but don’t have the time to fool with it? As your real estate virtual assistant, I’m glad to help. Simply give me a call, 757.271.6047 or send me an email to get started.
I’m sure you have heard the quote ‘Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.’ I believe this is true. I also believe it has limits. One of the limits is copying text off the Home page of my real estate virtual assistant website without asking my permission. At first, I was not a happy camper as you can imagine. On taking a second look, it became hysterical. Here is why…
I received an email from a virtual assistant friend of mine. I read:
Hello,
This website is stealing some of your content : http://colvas.com/default.aspx. The person left in the links that lead back to your website. I also found my content on this website. I have copied the pages of the site with the stolen copy to a pdf as proof in case there is a denial.
Upon reading this email, I don’t mind telling you I was pissed!!I visited the the site mentioned above and low and behold there are the first two paragraphs of my website copied word for word. The screen shot below was taken February 22, 2010…
At this point, I am still very annoyed but then I clicked on the link in the second line: ‘real estate virtual assistant’ and it goes to a page on MY WEBSITE: http://myreassistant.com/what-is-a-va. Seriously!! Now I can’t stop laughing and every time I tell this story to someone I laugh harder. I don’t know if I should be angry this person stole my stuff or thank her for the backlink to my website.
Funny or not, the bottom line is don’t ‘borrow’ someone else’s work without asking permission! It is not a good way to promote your real estate business and the person may not be flattered!!
Tim contacted me this me this week about an upcoming training for real estate professionals and their assistants whose job it is to close short sales. We all know how challenging short sales can be! Tim’s training is invaluable to any Team member or Real Estate Virtual Assistant who is in the trenches getting short sales to closing!
I have known Tim Burrell for years and he is the consummate professional and a fun person to learn from. Read what Tim has to sayand take advantage of his FREE Seminar…you will be glad you did!!
“It took me seventeen years to learn the best way to do short sales. I have been teaching Realtors how to do short sales, which is like teaching donkeys to fly. You can launch them with high amounts of energy, but they do not stay with it for very long unless you give them lots of support. Most Realtors do not like the persistence, detail and repetitive work that it takes to negotiate a short sale with a bank, because most of them do not have a C personality type.
So, I am concentrating on teaching how to negotiate with the bank, mainly for the team members and Real Estate Virtual Assistants. The Realtors can do the Realtor part of it i.e. get the listing and get an offer. The team does the part that makes the difference: getting it approved. The negotiating techniques I teach have enabled me to get all but one of my short sales approved.
The Realtors need to learn this also, because they are responsible for the whole transaction. However, their team members or Real Estate Virtual Assistants take to it better than they do.
If you are interested, go to www.ShortSaleNegotiatingSpecialist.com to register for a free webinar February 25th at 3 pm eastern time, and bring your team members and assistants. After all, it takes the same amount of time to negotiate a short sale that does not get approved by the bank as it does to negotiate one that is approved… and the ones that are approved pay much better.”
As a real estate Virtual Assistant my satisfaction comes from knowing I have helped make my clients not only look good, but exceed expectations and set themselves a part as leaders in their real estate community.
Knowing this, you will understand why I was thrilled when my client, Mike Manosky with RE/MAX Huntsville, shared a compliment he received from a Craigs List user:
Hi Ruth Ann,
I just wanted to pass along this email I got last night off Craigs List. I really enjoy reading the copy you create as well. Thanks for all the great work!
Mike Manosky……
I am not looking to buy or sell a house, but I am retired and therefore have time to look at homes offered for sale. I must say that your description of this property was masterfully done and should bring you many inquiries.
It’s such a pleasure to see well written ad copy at at time when some realtors don’t even know how to spell or care enough to include a picture of the property! Hopefully your thoroughness and ability to paint such a positive picture of this home brings you much gratitude from the home’s owners. Keep up the great work!
JK
Marketing of your listings or listing coordination an ideal task to outsource to a real estate virtual assistant, especially if you don’t enjoy writing. You might be wondering how be can write aobut a hoouse we have never been in. What happens with Mike is he provides us with an information sheet he uses when he takes the listing, the MLS sheet and photos. You see the results.
Are you good at generating Internet leads for your real estate business, but having difficutly converting those leads? It is easy to get yourself into a vicious cycle. Business is slow. You spend money on marketing. You generate leads. You diligently follow-up on those leads. You get busy with new clients. Then don’t have time to follow-up on leads and business is slow again. Don’t fret! There is a way out of this cycle!
A skilled real estate virtual assistant can respond to and nurture your Internet leads until they become ready, willing and able buyers. The leads can be pre-qualified by your lender, sent relocation information, put on drip email campaigns, set up on automated property searches, sent newsletters, called at pre-determined intervals, and made to feel like they are your only client and you haven’t even talked with them yet.
Watch this power point presentation below and see how a real estate virtual assistant helped Leigh Brown with RE/MAX Signature Properties in Charlotte NC take her Internet business for 6% to 24% of her total business in one year.
Have questions about how a real estate virtual assistant can help you convert more leads. Contact us at info@myreassistant.com. We are glad to answer all your questions.
First let me say, if you haven’t taken the Certified Distressed Property Institute (CDPE) course, you are missing out. This is an invaluable course, teaching you how to identify/qualify distressed property owners, effectively negotiate with the lender, getting to a successful closing.
Until I took the course, I thought the foreclosure problem was at its peak and the worst was over. This couldn’t be further from the truth. 2.97% of homeowners are in foreclosure and another 6.99% are in default, meaning they are behind on payments but not in the foreclosure process yet. When I realized the foreclosure crisis is not going away any time soon, I knew it was time for my Team to earn our CDPE designations and offer virtual assistant services to CDPE designees.
We have put systems in place to help CDPEs with:
building a distressed property business
servicing distressed property listings
assembling your short sale package
and coordinating a successful closing
The primary goal of a CDPE is to help a homeowner avoid foreclosure and move forward with their lives. We believe so strongly is this goal that we are limiting our distressed property services to CDPEs only. This way we know we are all on the same page and are working toward the primary goal of helping those in distress.
If you are a CDPE in need of support services in building your business and assisting homeowners, visit our website, myREassistant.com or give us a call, 757-271-6047.
Last night about 9PM, I was working on marketing a listing (Listing Coordination) for one of my clients. Why so late? I have a Team of four real estate Virtual Assistants that work with me. One of them is on vacation this week…something well deserved! And the husband of another is in the hospital. Understandably, she is not focused on her virtual assistant work this week either.
If these women were working as in-house assistants or maybe
even working on other virtual assistant Teams, the real estate agent, whose work needed to be completed, would be working on the marketing his listing at
9PM in the evening. NOT so, is this case!!
Because this real estate agent hired myREassistant as his real estate Virtual Assistant, the work was getting done by other people on our Team. The agent didn’t have to worry about it. He knew it would be taken care of.
Do I advertise I work at 9PM in the evening…heck NO. My advertised hours are 9-5 EST, Monday through Friday. But, when there is work to be done that is time sensitive, it gets done one way or the other.
What are the benefits of working with real estate Virtual Assistant, Ruth Ann Macklin, rather than hiring an in-house employee?
• You are only billed for the hours worked. As your real estate Virtual Assistant, I am ready to work for you anytime you need me, but only when you need me.
• You have a permanent staffing solution. Temps are expensive and transient (most are looking for full-time employment). As your real estate Virtual Assistant, I am a team player providing reliable, dependable service.
• You don’t need to provide workspace and equipment such as computer, fax machine, phone and office supplies. As your real estate Virtual Assistant, I work from a remote location saving you overhead dollars.
I had the privilege of spending two days with real estate industry leaders.
Let’s face it, we have all experienced the two types of workers. One the one hand, there is the kind of worker who does the minimum required to get by and not get fired. On the other hand, there is the worker who shows initiative, not only does the job, but does it well and brings new ideas as to how to do the job better. We all prefer the second type of worker – someone who goes above and beyond the minimum required.
As your Real Estate Virtual Assistant, I am the second type of worker. I invest my own time in training and learning from industry leaders so I can share what is new and what works in the current real estate markets.
This week, I had the privilege of spending two days with real estate industry leaders who are part of the Cyberprofessionals, a group of approximately 60 real estate professionals from around the country and the world, who get together twice a year to share ideas. I belonged to this group as a practicing Realtor and am fortunate that they let me stay in the group when I opened my Real Estate Virtual Assistant business in 2005.
One of the joys of becoming a real estate Virtual Assistant is I spend my days at home.
One of the joys of becoming a real estate Virtual Assistant is I spend my days at home. No getting in the car every morning and fighting traffic. When I need a break, all I do is go outside into my own yard…I have a love of flowers, as you will see…to regroup and rejuvenate. There is no place more relaxing than my garden and the view of the Chesapeake Bay at the end of my street.
When I was selling real estate, I used to say, “A good day off is not getting in the car.” Now I say, “A good day is not getting in the car.”
Take a look at the 
Last night about 9PM, I was working on marketing a listing (
What are the benefits of working with real estate Virtual Assistant, Ruth Ann Macklin, rather than hiring an in-house employee?
As your Real Estate Virtual Assistant, I am the second type of worker. I invest my own time in training and learning from industry leaders so I can share what is new and what works in the current real estate markets. 
