Published February 8, 2022
Updated June 28, 2023
When looking for a virtual assistant, a variety of companies offer placement services. It can be difficult to determine which company is the best fit for your unique needs. However, when looking for virtual property management assistants or real estate team members, a job platform built for these industries by industry professionals is the best place to start!
Let's look at how VPM Solutions differs from other placement service companies when looking for the best virtual assistants in the business.
With the VPM Solutions platform, property managers don't pay any upfront placement or training fees. As a matter of fact, there are no subscription fees or platform fees at all!
Compared to other remote workforce platforms, you could pay anywhere from $500-$2,500 for a hiring or placement fee.
With our service, the only charges to you as a company are small percentage payment processing fees passed through from the payment service to you. That means you have full access to everything our platform offers — from creating your account to reviewing potential VAs, posting unlimited job descriptions, communicating with candidates and VAs, managing, and paying your remote team — without paying any recruiting fees.
With many other placement service companies, it can take days or even weeks before they present a few candidates to you for a final interview. Then, if you don't like any of the candidates they find for you, it can take another few weeks to get another batch of potential virtual assistants.
With VPM Solutions, property management company owners can post a job on the platform, get instantly matched with our TalentMatch algorithm, and invite candidates to apply for the job within minutes.
Post a job and see applications come pouring in almost right away! This greatly reduces the time it takes to realize you need a VA, post a job, sift through candidates, then finally select your new contractor.
With VPM Solutions, you have complete control over your workforce-building process. Companies can review as many or as few resume cards as they need to find the right candidates, then invite as many applicants as they want to interview.
However, other placement companies or recruiters may only present a few candidates for you to review.
Plus, property managers have control over the hourly rate they pay and can set it when posting a job — but the control does not stop at the remote team-building process. With VPM Solutions, you can easily pay a bonus, change an hourly rate, review and dispute time cards, or simply upload documents to a workspace.
As a result, we make it easy for companies to maintain total control over how they manage remote property management contractors. We're a one-stop, self-service workforce-outsourcing solution for the property management and real estate industries! You won't find anything else like VPM Solutions to build your team and grow your business.
When we say "self-service," we mean it! There is no middleman when using VPM Solutions.
When you post a job, you enter an hourly range you have in mind for that position. When a virtual assistant creates a profile, they enter their desired hourly rate. This means VPM Solutions promotes a free market enterprise, and all rates are negotiable between companies and virtual contractors!
However, with a traditional placement service company, they will negotiate an hourly rate with you, the company. Then, in many cases, they will choose a virtual assistant for a role at a much lower rate and keep the difference between the negotiated rate vs. the rate the virtual assistant will receive.
The challenge with this setup is that the virtual team member makes a lower wage — even if you specify a more competitive salary. If they get an opportunity for a very small increase, they will likely quit working for you and go to another company that pays better. This usually occurs after you've spent time training your VA and they're already producing good work for your company.
By using VPM Solutions, your remote team members can earn higher rates and more competitive salaries even though you are paying a lower rate. This means they are less likely to get offers for more money and leave, which improves your virtual team member retention rate and helps you build a happy and content workforce.
Some companies deliver a few assistants to fulfill the tasks for a role. Or they allow one VA to work for multiple companies. This means that you do not have a dedicated team member.
However, the VPM Solutions platform was created with a 1:1 relationship in mind. When you choose a contractor full-time, that contractor will only contract with you. Our platform prevents virtual property management assistants from entering time for two different jobs on the same date and time.
With dedicated virtual assistants working only for your company through their contracted roles, you build better relationships with remote contractors. This can help productivity and efficiency and ensure you have a reliable VA to deliver high-quality work!
We want to make sure our platform is a valuable tool for businesses. So, VPM Solutions has real-time reporting that companies can access at any time.
View timecards, current payments, or historical payments with a click of a button. With traditional placement companies, businesses receive little to no reporting. If you do receive reporting, it may be weekly — but it is not on-demand.
We know that knowledge is power, so we provide the team insights you need to manage your contractors well.
We understand how difficult it is to find a new team member and then teach them the very basics of property management, literally starting with the lingo we use in this industry.
VPM Solutions offers training to remote assistants designed to teach them the basics of property management, beginning with the lifecycle of property management. Through our free VPM Academy, we help your VA understand everything about property management services, from advertising a unit, leasing best practices, move-in checklists, handling maintenance requests, move-out procedures, turning a unit, and everything else in between.
Then, when a virtual assistant finishes a training course, they take a test. Once they pass the test, they receive a VPM Academy certification for that class, displayed on their profile. Now property managers have the ability to build a team of virtual assistants with proven industry training to contribute meaningful remote work for your business!
These are just a few of the many reasons why VPM Solutions stands apart from other placement companies and virtual assistant services. With the benefits we've mentioned here, a property manager can build a team more quickly, save money on payroll, find quality and well-trained virtual assistants as independent contractors, and retain complete control of the team management process.
It's easy to get started! Start your Free Company Profile today, and download our free Real Estate Virtual Assistant Hiring Kit to start your first job posting.