The real estate playbook

Agencies come to us at a predictable point: the rent roll has grown past what one property manager can service, the principal is doing listing admin at 10pm, and hiring locally means a full salary plus a desk for work that is mostly keyboard and phone. Property is unusually well suited to offshore support because so much of the load is scheduled, repeatable and screen-based.

380

properties one assistant supports on our current bench

Same day

typical listing-live time once prep moves offshore

6am

Manila start that covers a full AEST morning

3

things we tell agencies not to offshore

Hand this over first

Ordered by how quickly it pays back. The first three are usually live within a fortnight.

Keep these three in the office

We would rather lose part of a placement than have an agency put us somewhere that creates a compliance problem. These are the three we push back on.

1. 01Anything requiring a licence

   Non-negotiable

   Appraisals, negotiating on price, giving advice a licensed agent must give, and final trust account sign-off. Your VA can prepare the file, assemble the numbers and draft the correspondence. A licensed person makes the call and signs.

   • Trust reconciliation support is fine; authorisation is not
   • Drafting a rent review is fine; determining it is a licensed judgement
   • Check your state or country's specific rules, because they differ

2. 02First contact on a distressed tenancy

   Judgement call

   Arrears escalation, hardship conversations and anything heading towards a tribunal want someone local who knows the legislation and can appear if it goes that far. Routine arrears reminders are a different thing and move fine.

   • Automated and templated arrears reminders: offshore
   • The conversation where someone is losing their home: local

3. 03Anything you would be embarrassed to explain

   Your own test

   If a landlord asking "who exactly did this?" would be an awkward conversation, that task is not ready to move yet. Usually the fix is documentation rather than location, and it moves six weeks later.

The systems question

This is the first thing principals ask and it is rarely the obstacle they expect. Every candidate we place into property is screened on the platform you actually run.

What tenants and landlords actually notice

The honest answer is that they notice response time, not accent. An agency that answers within the hour with the right information beats one where the local PM is too busy to call back for two days. Where it does matter is the phone: if a large share of your tenant base is elderly or your market is regional, test it with a small volume before moving all inbound calls.

The complaint we hear before a placement is that tenants will not accept an offshore voice. The complaint we hear afterwards is that the PM has nothing left to do at 8am.

A realistic first 90 days on a rent roll

1. 01Weeks 1 to 2: watch and document

   Low output, high value

   They shadow your PM's recordings and turn them into written process. Expect very little visible output and a great many questions. This is the phase agencies cut short and regret.

2. 02Weeks 3 to 4: listings and inspections

   First real load

   Listing prep, portal uploads and inspection scheduling, with every output checked before it leaves. By the end of week four the listing bottleneck should be gone.

3. 03Weeks 5 to 8: maintenance and correspondence

   The big one

   First response on maintenance and the tenant inbox. This is where the PM's day changes, and where the process documentation from week one earns its keep.

4. 04Weeks 9 to 12: reporting and renewals

   Steady state

   Routine reports, lease renewals and rent review preparation. At this point most agencies start asking us about a second hire.

What it costs against a local hire