A real estate virtual assistant costs roughly $3 to $12 an hour offshore and $22 to $40 an hour in the US, according to ranges that VA vendors publish. That works out to about $500 to $2,000 a month for most offshore setups, versus several thousand for a full-time US hire. Below, we break down the ranges, what they leave out, and how to decide if the math works for your business.
Real estate virtual assistant cost by region
None of these numbers come from an audited survey. They are ranges that VA agencies and staffing vendors advertise, and they broadly agree with each other.
- Philippines: VA Masters, a Philippines agency, advertises $4-7/hr for general admin and $6-12/hr for real estate support. HireTalent.ph lists $5-6/hr for beginners and $8.50-11.50+/hr for senior VAs.
- Pakistan: the same VA Masters table lists $3-5/hr general and $5-10/hr specialized. Evidence here is thinner than for any other region.
- Latin America: VA Masters lists $6-12/hr for Mexico and Colombia. HireInSouth, a LatAm staffing vendor, advertises $900-$3,500+ a month depending on seniority.
- US-based: VA Masters lists $22-40/hr for a real estate VA. Stealth Agents advertises $18-30/hr for a general US VA.
A transparency note: our delivery team is Pakistan-based, so weigh our view accordingly.
Agency vs direct hire, hourly vs monthly
Freelancers carry the lowest headline rates, but you do the screening, training and replacement. Agencies charge more per hour and handle that for you. One vendor claims agency-placed VAs stay longer than direct hires, but it is an agency and shows no method, so treat that as a claim, not a fact.
Hourly dedicated billing is the most transparent. Monthly retainers fix the fee for defined hours or deliverables, and VA Masters notes they often cost more per hour than advertised once you divide it out. VA Masters prices agency retainers at $1,500-$3,500 a month, often shared capacity.
ISA, transaction coordinator and CRM VA pricing
According to Jamil Academy’s review of job postings, an in-house ISA is typically advertised at a $36,000-$60,000 base, with bonuses that vary wildly. Outsourced ISA seats run about $1,988-$2,500 a month full-time. Our full comparison is in ISA vs virtual assistant.
For transaction coordinators, RISMedia reported in 2023 that US fees run $300 to $1,000 or more per transaction, 1-3% of commission, or $25-50/hr. VA Masters advertises $300-600 per file, or $8.50-10.50/hr offshore. See transaction coordinator vs VA.
CRM management has no published price. Vendors place CRM data entry and MLS work at the lowest tier, about $7-8.50/hr in the Philippines. Your CRM seats are billed separately by the platform, and we will not guess at those prices.
What $500, $1,000 and $2,000 a month buys
This is illustrative arithmetic from the vendor ranges above, not a quote. It ignores agency overhead, so real working hours may be lower.
| Rate used | $500 | $1,000 | $2,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pakistan, $4/hr | 125 hrs | 250 hrs | 500 hrs |
| Philippines real estate, $10/hr | 50 hrs | 100 hrs | 200 hrs |
| US real estate, $30/hr | 17 hrs | 33 hrs | 67 hrs |
In practice, $500 is part-time help. $1,000 is about one full-time entry-to-mid offshore VA. $2,000 covers a full-time senior specialist or two part-timers. A full-time month is roughly 160-176 hours.
A simple ROI framework
Here is an illustration, not a forecast. The National Association of Realtors 2026 Member Profile says the typical Realtor closed 9 transaction sides in 2025, with median gross income of $59,200 and 2025 median business expenses of $9,530. Say you spend $1,000 a month ($12,000 a year) on a VA. Divide your own gross income by your working hours to see what an hour of yours is worth, then ask how many hours the VA frees for selling. If the VA’s hours go to follow-up and admin, the real test is whether you close even one extra side a year. Use your own average commission, not ours.
What it looked like for our clients
We will not quote client invoices. What we can say is what the work covered. For the Faruqi Team, we cleaned and re-tagged a 14,000-contact BoldTrail database and ran daily lead follow-up. For Tammy Theis, we managed her Lofty account and built a 30-email nurture sequence. Susanna Castro’s transaction files ran through dotloop and SkySlope. Those are very different scopes, which is why one hourly number rarely tells the story.
Where the hours went on the Faruqi Team’s BoldTrail account
Hourly rates only mean something once you know what the hours are spent on. On the Faruqi Team’s 14,000-contact BoldTrail database, the first stretch of work was unglamorous: rebuilding the tagging structure from scratch and segmenting contacts by relationship type and recency. After that came ongoing work, including a branded seller-lead email system, YouTube video production, LinkedIn outreach, daily lead follow-up and a fix for their domain’s email deliverability (SPF, DKIM and DMARC). You can read the detail in how we managed that database, the Faruqi Team case study and our post on cleaning and reactivating a real estate database.
The NOW Team was a different scope again: a GoHighLevel rebuild, a FSBO acquisition funnel, and market-update emails written for each farm area. See the NOW Team case study. The takeaway for budgeting is to price the scope, not the hour, and the social media and CRM pieces can be scoped separately. For the social side, see real estate social media virtual assistant, and if you are still choosing a CRM, BoldTrail vs Lofty vs GoHighLevel compares three we work in.
Common hiring mistakes and interview questions
Stealth Agents, a VA vendor, lists these mistakes, and we agree with most of them:
- Hiring before you have written down 3-5 tasks.
- Relying on interviews alone instead of a paid test task.
- Skipping written SOPs.
- Underestimating onboarding. Budget about four weeks of heavier involvement.
- Choosing on price over fit.
Our own suggested questions, not from a study: Which CRMs have you worked in daily? How do you handle MLS data and client privacy? Walk me through a cold call script you have used. What hours overlap with mine? What do you do when three urgent requests land at once? Also check what your state allows an unlicensed assistant to do.
If you want a clear number for your scope, talk to us about a real estate virtual assistant. Pricing depends on the work, and a free consult gets you a figure.