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- Key figure: Hayley Van de Ven, CEO of Limitless Group, RE/MAX franchisee
- Challenge: Maintaining consistent lead nurturing across multiple offices while scaling operations
- Solution: Implemented Realtair’s automation platform integrated with a virtual assistant workforce
- Key achievement: Generated over 400 opportunities in 30 days, including 214 leads for Market Updates and 221 appraisal bookings
Queensland real estate leader Hayley Van de Ven faced the same challenge that frustrates agencies nationwide: turning cold leads into consistent business. But in just 30 days, her innovative approach has delivered remarkable results: over 400 new opportunities, including 214 qualified leads and 221 appraisal bookings from a single event. The game-changer? A unique combination of Realtair’s technology and a skilled virtual team.
From a 17-year-old real estate rookie to CEO of the Limitless Group, her journey is proof of the power of embracing innovation. As owner of the number one and two ranked RE/MAX offices in Australia, she’s built a business that combines automation with authentic relationships, proving that technology can enhance rather than replace the personal touch that defines successful agencies.
From crisis to opportunity
The story of Van de Ven’s virtual assistant business began during COVID when her senior property manager relocated to Bali. “I sent her laptop and she started working remotely for us,” Van de Ven recalls. This initial step sparked something bigger. “Then she had one of her friends who was a general manager of a hotel chain that was sent home because all tourism was cancelled in Bali. Highly skilled, excellent English, incredible operator, sent her a laptop. Great. She can start working too. Who else have you got?”
What started with two people has transformed into VA4U, a business that now employs over 110 virtual assistants globally. The cost benefits are significant: “At $26,000 a year, it’s a huge, huge difference in paying 60 or $70,000 for a junior that might be sitting in the office with the same set of skills,” Van de Ven shares.
Tech-driven success
The integration of Realtair has been crucial to Van de Ven’s success. “Nurture is always the pain point,” she explains. “The consistency of the three-month bump to ensure that agents were maintaining contacts with their nurtured leads was something that was a huge pain point for us. So Realtair was able to solve that for us very quickly.”
Realtair’s intelligent tracking capabilities provide crucial insights into client engagement. “When you can see that they’ve actually opened their appraisal eight times… And it’s been sent to Sydney, it’s been sent to Paris… Hang on. There’s probably multiple stakeholders that are involved in this,” Van de Ven notes. This visibility helps her team identify serious prospects and time their follow-ups perfectly.
Seamless integration
The magic happens in the seamless integration between Realtair’s platform and the virtual team. Every morning, VAs prepare personalised Market Updates and Digital Proposals, breaking down what could be an overwhelming monthly task into manageable daily activities.
“If you are doing a hundred Market Updates a month, that becomes 10x really, really quickly,” Van de Ven explains. “So we break it into a daily task rather than a monthly task because if we left that sitting there, it’d be daunting.” This systematic approach hasn’t just made life easier for agents – it’s transformed their ability to nurture leads consistently.
“We are finding now the consistency of that nurture is resulting in people responding who that we've never spoken to before that have come off a market report. We've continued to nurture them over six to nine months, and then they respond with an email saying, ‘Hi, please list my property for sale.’”
Measuring what matters
For Van de Ven, visibility and accountability are crucial. “For us, the big things that it’s allowed is visibility, but it’s also allowed us to measure,” she says. “When they say what gets measured gets done, the reality is when we are able to have a focus on the numbers and the conversions… if it’s not in Realtair, then it doesn’t count because we’re not measuring it, we’re not nurturing it, and the notes aren’t going into the system.”
The impact of this data-driven approach is clear in the results. In a recent month, Van de Ven’s team broke records with 214 leads for Market Updates and sales appraisals. During a single “Blackout Day” event – their innovative approach to concentrated prospecting – they secured another 221 appraisal bookings. Even more impressively, they’re seeing listings secured from leads who’ve received just three nurture emails.
Remote excellence
What began as a pandemic solution has evolved into a thriving business supporting real estate professionals across Australia. VA4U provides highly skilled remote professionals who are already experienced in real estate operations. “Typically, they’ve been in real estate for a while, so it’s not new to them. You’re not having to say, well, this is a house, this is a townhouse, this is a unit,” Van de Ven explains.
The business model is built on efficiency and expertise. “Each salesperson is very different, and they just tailor all of those tasks to whoever they like,” she notes. “Certainly something that we’ve utilised in our business to, again, make sure that the salespeople do what they’re best at, which is listing and selling properties and being people facing and utilising the VAs to make sure that there’s that total admin support in the back end at a really efficient price point.”
The combination of skilled virtual assistance and Realtair’s platform has created a powerful engine for growth. Teams can now maintain consistent communication with prospects while focusing on high-value activities, all while keeping costs manageable.
Looking forward
With REA Group’s backing of Realtair, Van de Ven sees enormous potential. “It’ll change the game exponentially. There’s no question about that,” she predicts. Her success shows that the future of real estate belongs to those who can effectively combine technology with personal service.
For agencies watching Van de Ven’s success, the message is clear: the future belongs to those willing to innovate while staying true to real estate’s relationship-driven core. Her journey shows that with the right tools – particularly Realtair’s comprehensive platform – and the right support team, it’s possible to scale personal service without losing the human touch.
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