Hey there, Patrick and JP here.
So, a fellow investor emailed us a solid question the other day that we’d like to discuss — a business-building issue most of us will contend with at some point as our real estate investment businesses grow…
“What’s the best way to find a good virtual assistant?”
Let’s dive in…
Patrick’s Perspective
First, if you haven’t already done so, you need to clearly define exactly what it is that this person will do for you. And the clearer and more detailed you can be, the better.
Write out a job description, the specific tasks, the responsibility that this role will take on, etc. The more that you can flesh out exactly what this person will be doing for you, the better chance you have of winning when you end up actually hiring him or her.
Local vs. Virtual
Another big question to ask yourself on the front end is whether you’d be better off hiring a local assistant or a virtual (remote) assistant. They each have their pros and cons, and the right answer for you may be one or the other, or even both.
Yes, I actually have both local and virtual assistants in my investment business and education businesses.
Personally, I love having a local helper who can assist with things that need to be handled in person, like running errands, for example. And sometimes it can just be a lot more efficient and effective to have a person actually working in the same space physically as you. It takes a lot less time to say, “Hey, come over here for a second and let me walk you through this process,” vs doing it all via phone, Zoom or whatever.
For some things, having someone work remotely is ideal. Bookkeeping for example — I can’t think of any good reason my bookkeeper can’t be doing my books just as easily anywhere on the planet where he has an internet connection.
Virtual assistants can sometimes (but not always) cost you less than local help, too. But that’s another discussion entirely.
My Favorite Way to Find Assistants
Hands down, my favorite way to find a good team member is through referrals.
Typically, I’ll start by asking some of my entrepreneur and investor friends if they have someone they’ve used before and can refer to me. Or someone they’re currently using only part time, who’s looking for some extra hours. Or maybe a certain company they’ve had success with for virtual assistants.
Bottom line, I always start by looking for a warm, personal referral first if possible.
Next Stop
After that, I’ll typically go to Craigslist.
Craigslist can really be a really fantastic place to find very qualified, eager and hungry people who need work (full or part time) and could be an excellent fit for helping your business in a number of ways, from out-tasking specialized projects, to local assistants to virtual assistants.
Basically, I just put out a simple ad detailing exactly what that position is, the time commitment, the pay potential, and asking for resumes. Nothing super fancy or magical about it. The responses tend to come in very quickly. And they just keep coming… and coming… and coming.
A few things to keep in mind with Craigslist:
- Once you’ve filled a position from Craigslist, you might want to go ahead and delete your ad to stop the inquiries from coming in.
- If you include your phone number, mix is up a bit so the spam robots can’t easily scrape it from your listing. So instead of posting “call or text 999-1234”, maybe post it something like, “call or text 99nine-one23four” Otherwise you could find your phone number being scraped, sold and solicited in unwanted ways.
- Beware — there are spammers and scammers galore on Craigslist. Don’t ever give up any private info or send anyone money carelessly.
- Include something very specific at the end of your ad, as a qualifier for your potential assistants, to make sure they carefully read your ad and aren’t just sending you a resume without really paying attention. Just a small hoop to jump through, like “In your response, give me one little known fact about you that will make me smile or be surprised. If you don’t include a random fact about you, your application won’t be considered.” This is easy and will guarantee you’re only dealing with real people who actually took the time to carefully read your job posting.
Read This
In my mind, a conversation on virtual assistants isn’t complete without bringing the “Four Hour Work Week” by Tim Ferriss into the discussion.
If you haven’t yet read it, make sure it’s the next book on your list. In addition to some really challenging and powerful business-building concepts, Tim has a lot to say about outsourcing and out-tasking, including specific and unique ways he’s setup his entire business and live to be run and managed by virtual assistants.
Check it out and you’ll be really glad you did.
JP’s Take
And I think the “Four Hour Work Week” was one of the first books that really opened my eyes to even how a solopreneur could effectively leverage virtual assistants. Really blew my mind honestly — and highly recommended for sure.
I do have a few things I’ll toss in the bag here that I think are worth something.
It’s a Natural Progression
If you’ve dreamed of owning an “E-myth”-style business, where you’re more business owner than technician… where you’re able to work on your business more than in it…
For most investors, once you’ve got those first few deals under your belt — you’ve got a business model that works for you, money starts rolling in and the lather/rinse/repeat process is well under way, the next logical step is often to begin learning how to really systematize things.
It’s the whole E-Myth idea of learning how to work more “on” your business rather than “in” it day to day.
And at some point, this will inevitably lead you to if/when you should start outsourcing key parts of your real estate investing business — maybe many, or even most of them.
Domestic vs. Overseas
Patrick already covered the consideration of local vs. remote. But another similar (but different) cog in the wheel of this discussion is to also choose philosophically whether you want to consider an overseas assistant (i.e., India, Pakistan, Philippines, etc.) vs. a home-grown, domestic virtual assistant.
Some people feel free strongly on one side or the other of this:
On the Overseas Side
You’ll pay a lot less for sure. An Indian or Filipino VA can often cost you $4-$5 an hour, versus $10-$20 an hour for the same person in the States.
But some people feel strongly that you’re robbing jobs from Americans who need them when you outsource like this. Others will contend that for many jobs, even if you’re paying much less per hour for oversees help, it may end up costing you more in the long run due to communication and cultural barriers, than if you’d just hired a skilled North American to do the work from the get-go.
Since I’ve had the opportunity to work with a number of Filipino assistants, hiring them for other things in addition to being VAs, I have gained an enthusiastic affinity for Filipino hires because their culture is so congruent with our culture.
And, a sort of life hack that I discovered is that because the dollar goes so far in the Philippines, you can pay them a little more than most Americans pay them, and they will be really well taken care of, which will give you a high likelihood of their loyalty and focus.
For example, you may be able to hire them for $5 an hour, but if you can afford to pay them $6-$10 an hour, you’re still paying way less than you would pay for somebody in the United States to be your virtual assistant.
And that is a really high pay scale in comparison to what other people in the United States will pay. So, you can get your pick of the best, most qualified people… and you earn loyalty right out of the gate.
On the Domestic Side
You’ll pay more, hands down. But you’ll also find it much easier to communicate, to understand someone’s personal culture, and to get someone working the same business hours as you. Plus, yes, you’re keeping American dollars and American jobs squarely in America.
My Take: I do both.
I have overseas help for some things — things that can be clearly, easily documented by me via video, then handed off to a skilled person overseas to rinse and repeat the same way repetitively. Like marketing, certain web tasks, research, etc.
I also have a domestic employee (local actually, but not working physically in my office) who handles other higher-level aspects of my business I simply feel will be done better by a North American.
Bottom line, you’ll have to make this decision yourself, based on your own feelings on the issues, and the current needs of your business.
Great Places to Find Virtual Assistants in 2025
Getting to the heart of the original question, I do have some specific recommendations for places you can find a good virtual assistant. Besides personal referrals and Craigslist (which Patrick already covered), these are places that either I or people I know well have personal experience with.
Upwork — One of the most common that people tend to use is Upwork, where you’ll find people who can do just about anything you can imagine, on both a domestic and foreign level.
There are some benefits to Upwork in that you can read reviews of the people, which helps you hire people with a proven track record in whatever area you’re looking for help. They also have some great tracking built into the system, which provides a level of accountability for work done.
But if you hire someone through Upwork, you pretty much always have to go through Upwork, and Upwork takes a little piece of that.
I use Upwork from time to time, usually for “out-tasking” special projects rather than hiring a long-term employee.
Online Jobs — This is basically a jobs and resumes posting board designed to help Filipino VAs connect with American companies who hire them. You peruse through various Filipinos who’ve posted their profile and resume in a given area of expertise… and reach out to them when you find someone who looks like a possibility.
What I like about this site is it’s very easy to use, and you’ll find many, many people to consider. But the downside for me, is that the whole process of hiring someone from the Philippines is a bit intimidating, and the site does little to nothing to really help me overcome this. Knowing so little about the culture, possible risks, etc., I found myself feeling kind of lost in a sea of resumes and profiles when it came down to it.
Think of it as speed dating for your virtual assistant. Very good at connecting with lots of potential folks, but not so much at the next steps of due diligence, screening, etc.
Virtual Staff Finder — I’ve used this company personally and had an excellent experience – highly recommended if you’re looking to hire a Filipino VA who will work for directly for you.
Essentially, they act as kind of a middleman headhunter specifically for Filipino virtual assistants. You pay them a one-time, flat fee of a few hundred bucks, and they go to work for you, interviewing local, qualified VA candidates based on exactly what you tell them you’re looking for. Then they’ll bring you three to 6 prescreened prospects for you to interview and screen further yourself.
Personally, when I reached the point of hiring an overseas VA, I knew I wanted him or her to work for me directly, but was intimidated about the prospect of sorting through oceans of resumes long distance, and found myself just wishing I had someone who could guide me to some solid prospects, or at least help me cull through and narrow it down.
And that’s exactly what VSF is all about doing.
One thing I found interesting was that I didn’t actually fully realize what I was looking for in a VA until after I interviewed the first round of three candidates VSF provided me. I reached out to them and explained that the three they’d sent me were close, but no cigar — but that I also felt I understood better what I really needed. I refined my job description for them, and they happily prescreened and presented a fresh batch of three folks for me (at no extra charge) and I hired someone from the second batch of candidates.
Bottom line, this is a really exceptional resource for anyone looking to hire a Filipino directly for any position.
Task Bullet — I literally just stumbled upon this company, through a Facebook ad no less. It said something like “Live Like Tim Ferriss” so it caught my eye.
You tell them what kind of assistant you need, and they assign you one to work for you, either part time or full time. Technically, you are their client, and the Filipino employee actually works for them in their office, but is assigned to you.
From what I can tell, their rates seem very competitive. I can’t offer a warm referral since I don’t have experience with them… but they might be worth considering if you’re looking to hire a pre-trained VA through a company.
Hire My Mom — And if you’re looking domestic-but-virtual, this is a fantastic resource you should look into.
I read that over 5.4 million mothers put their careers on hold to stay home with children. That adds up to a lot of talented women with experience, education, skills and the motivation to find flexible work that can be done from their home office. Basically, this site connects you with those stay-at-home moms who are looking for extra work in their areas of expertise.
As a business owner with a job listing, it won’t cost you a dime. (I assume the moms must have to pay to get access to the job postings instead.)
And very much like Virtual Staff Finder, you interview, evaluate and decide which candidate is best suited for your project. They provide the candidates, you provide the work, then they get out of the way.
So. there’s a few some specific resources I’ve used and recommend for you. Hope that helps!
Tips on Hiring a Virtual Assistant in 2025
A few solid suggestions, if you’re serious about hiring a virtual assistant:
- Make a list: Of things you are doing all the time that someone else can be trained to do. Don’t believe the lie that: “Only I can do this.” In most cases, this is fear talking. Be honest and know that a job done 80% as good as you would do it, is good enough in most cases.
- Make another list: Of things you don’t like to do and/or don’t do well.
- Ask yourself: “If I had absolutely no choice but to outsource these things to someone else, how would I make it happen?”
- Make a final list: From these lists, make a “Stop Doing” list (things that aren’t absolutely essential for you to do, that someone else could be trained to do).
- Decide philosophically: Local vs. virtual and domestic vs. international. (Consider the ups/downs of each side and remember there’s really no one-size-fits-all).
- Give it a try: Consider hiring someone part time to handle the first few things on your list. Test the waters.
- Fail forward: Make mistakes, correct course and keep working it out.
Good luck!