The Property VA

By Cristina Osborne, UK Meet Cristina Osborne, founder of The Property VA. She got into property investing as a BTL landlord before seeing an opportunity to get into outsourcing as a secondary business. While networking with property investors, Cristina discovered that almost every single one of the investors in the room either was working with, or knew someone who was working with, or themselves wanted to work with, Filipino VAs. It looked like a status symbol to have a Filipino VA who supported their property business. Initially she informally helped a few investors find or connect with a Filipino looking for work. “When the pandemic hit, I took the opportunity to formalise Filipino VA sourcing for property investors and started The Property VA. I was perfectly placed to bridge my network of property investors as well as my knowledge of property investing, with my network of talented and highly skilled Filipinos and my understanding of Filipino culture and work ethic. I have since found work for over 50 Filipinos and I am rolling out plans in December for systemised outsourcing that will involve hiring Filipinos for 1,000 clients by 2023.” This systemised outsourcing model was developed in response to, what she describes as, UK small business owners' lack of understanding on Filipino work ethic and culture, as well as false expectations on what VAs can and can do. The small business owner property investors are typically self-employed and have little or no experience with hiring, recruiting, and working with staff, let alone a VA from a completely different culture. This would usually end up with inefficient and unproductive delegation of tasks to the virtual assistant, and unfortunately this also sometimes leads to VAs going AWOL on their clients. By designing and creating a systemised outsourcing model, Cristina is helping the property investor business owner take the headache out of outsourcing business tasks to the VA. "I'd like to think that I'm doing more than just finding work opportunities for Filipinos. Rather, helping Filipinos find sustainable careers as a Virtual Assistant by ensuring their clients are supported in creating a stress-free, efficient, and systemised outsourcing model." For any Filipino readers interested in applying for a position as a property VA, send in your application through the following link: bit.ly/TPVA-apply Cristina Osborne is based in West Yorkshire, England. She runs a property investment business Houseborne Ltd with her husband Stephen Osborne. Houseborne Ltd builds new homes for local council housing associations. Cristina also runs The Property VA providing outsourcing solutions for UK property investors. She holds a weekly training program for Filipino VAs to learn how to find property deals for their property investor clients. Cristina has been invited to speak at property networking events with Wealth Builders, Cogito Wealth and 90 Day Planning.