How Real Estate Investors Must Pivot Strategies in 2025 or Get Left Behind

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In this episode of the Real Estate Pros Podcast, host Micah Johnson speaks with Bob Lachance, a seasoned real estate investor and founder of a virtual assistant company. They discuss the evolving landscape of real estate, the importance of adapting strategies to market changes, and how virtual assistants can significantly enhance business operations. Bob shares insights on when to hire a VA, the importance of teamwork in real estate, and the necessity of clarity in task delegation. The conversation emphasizes the need for continuous learning and collaboration in the real estate industry.

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Micah Johnson (00:00)
Right. And that’s really, you run a professional real estate investment company and there’s, there is a significant difference when you start to get into that world where you’ve got your mom and pop investors where they’re picking up one or two a year, maybe. And then you switch to the company where you are scaled up. You’ve built a machine that trades in real estate. And that’s what I’ve noticed exactly what you’re saying where once you’re at that level, it’s not pick a strategy and stick with it forever. It’s a.

What does the market say the strategy is that I need to use? That is who is determining it.

Hello everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Micah Johnson. And today I’m joined by Bob Lachance, who’s been making some serious moves in real estate for quite some time now. Bob, welcome in, man. Glad to have you. Absolutely, man. I’m pumped for our call today. You’ve got some cool experience in the business, not just investing, but also running a VA company. We’ve interacted before, man. I’m pumped for what you’re getting ready to bring.

Bob Lachance- REVA Global VA’s (02:18)
Okay, thanks for having me, appreciate it.

Micah Johnson (02:32)
Let’s dive in for folks who may not know you yet. Tell us a little more about you and what your main focus is right now.

Bob Lachance- REVA Global VA’s (02:38)
Yeah, absolutely. So I do. I have a real estate investment company up here in Connecticut. We mainly focus. We’ve been doing stuff in different states, but now we kind of honed in our own backyard up here in Connecticut. ⁓ So that’s, it’s very interesting in how things change. I know we talked about this before we jumped on a call on how markets change and things like that. So we’re really honing in our backyard right today. And we do a lot of different wholesaling.

buy and resell, some small fix and flip, but mostly on the wholesale side is what we focus in on. And also my virtual assistant company, I use my virtual assistants in our own business as well. That’s been in business, I started my first virtual assistant company back in 2014. Fast forward today, I think we’re around 600 VAs right now. So, yeah.

Micah Johnson (03:28)
Man, that’s

before even anyone knew what a VA was. 14, that’s like the OG VA service, dude. Love that.

Bob Lachance- REVA Global VA’s (03:34)
Yeah, I

didn’t even know what a VA was. It was kind of funny because I was with a coaching program called Fortune Builders back in the day 2007, which we helped start. This is when they were going strong. And every time I did coaching calls with them, I would always say, there’s got to be a service, there’s got to be a product there that will help these students do actually the tasks that are being done. And then it took seven years for me to actually know what a virtual assistant was. was 2013 then.

light bulb went on, like, hey, you know what? This could be a business. So was pretty cool.

Micah Johnson (04:04)
is and it’s a game changer for your company, especially in the real estate investment world. B.A.’s are incredible assets in the right positions. And that’s something you all have done a great job with. I’ve interacted with your with the company outside of here where getting the right people for the right spots, especially that are real estate oriented, knowing what to do in this arena. And that’s the game changer.

Bob Lachance- REVA Global VA’s (04:27)
Yeah, I think it’s important to you look at every state. We see every state minimum wage going up, right? Minimum wage is never going to go down. you know, we in the Philippines, we have four year college degree virtual assistants. And I know for me in Connecticut, it’s very difficult to get somebody who has a four year college degree that’ll accept minimum wage. So what you have to do then you’re, you know, you’re, hiring the lesser of the individual that you want to hire. That’s why right now the Philippines works.

Micah Johnson (04:57)
Right. Cause it, like you’re saying, it’s not just, it’s not just nobody sitting there. It’s a highly educated person that’s working hard. I’ve worked hand in hand with them and enjoyed every moment, man. It is a, like I said, a real asset to your business. So I want to jump on one thing real quick, cause you were talking about market changes and you’re someone that gets to see that on a grand scale and the nuance scale. So what is it that you all seen changing over, you know, the last year or so that’s got you all zoomed more in on that backyard kind of tightening in that stability there.

Bob Lachance- REVA Global VA’s (06:15)
Yeah, I think days on the market is going up everywhere, right? And obviously it’s higher. talked about this. Florida is going a little higher. Texas is going a little higher. Connecticut just is ticking up a little bit. Obviously it’s winter time right now. Open the spring market. It, you know, kind of shrinks down again where buyers are coming out of the woodwork. But that’s you typically see at this time of year where, you know, it does typically slow down up in the north, northeast right now.

But we’re just keeping an eye on that and how long those days in the market are, et cetera.

Micah Johnson (06:47)
Right, right. Yeah. And it is, something that is popping up everywhere. So it’s interesting, man. That’s thing about real estate is it’s always changing. It is a lifelong learning game. Like you don’t get into it and learn one thing and feel like you’ve learned something. Cause if that’s the case, man, you’re gonna get left behind fast. It is a relentless cycle.

Bob Lachance- REVA Global VA’s (07:05)
Yeah, it’s It’s funny you say that

because everything is cycles. You look at, you know, how you’re business today may not be the same way you’re doing business tomorrow. You know, you have strategies like novations that, ⁓ some areas it’s easier to do. Other areas are starting to change. Wholesaling is starting to change to where now you got to go back to fix and flip. It’s just the way it is. You know, I started my first year in business starting in 2004, which obviously I’m

I’m aging myself now, but you see a lot of different changes and I think it’s important to understand that it’s okay when things change. Like we were talking about, you just have to stay ahead of the curve and you always need to understand that this business changes and it’s okay. have to change it.

Micah Johnson (07:51)
What’s been your best way for staying ahead of the curve?

Bob Lachance- REVA Global VA’s (07:55)
I think it’s just learning different strategies. know, one point’s buy and hold. Once you buy and hold and then, ⁓ properties appreciate, we just sold them. So as an example, so we were on a buy and hold kick a couple of years ago, properties appreciated. We started looking at what the cashflow is compared to the equity. So we decided to sell them because here’s the way I look at buy and holds, right? If you have an opportunity to make $30,000 on your buy and hold, rather than making $150 per month cashflow.

How many years are gonna take it to make that $30,000? And again, that’s just me. I know a lot of people may disagree with me, but that’s again, that’s the way I look at it, because I could use that $30,000 to turn that into more than I’m gonna make on that buying hold.

Micah Johnson (08:39)
Right. And that’s really, you run a professional real estate investment company and there’s, there is a significant difference when you start to get into that world where you’ve got your mom and pop investors where they’re picking up one or two a year, maybe. And then you switch to the company where you are scaled up. You’ve built a machine that trades in real estate. And that’s what I’ve noticed exactly what you’re saying where once you’re at that level, it’s not pick a strategy and stick with it forever. It’s a.

What does the market say the strategy is that I need to use? That is who is determining it.

And through your growth period is where you add new ones, right? If you don’t know nobations and markets calling for nobations, you better learn them. Cause it won’t be the last time the market calls for nobations. If you stay in the business, it’s going to just rotate through them. Where like you’re saying, sometimes wholesale is the deal. Sometimes fix and flip is the deal. Sometimes holding is the deal, but it’s understanding what do I need to do right now? That is literally how.

in the moment real estate is. It can change quickly. And if you won’t adjust with it, it’ll just leave you behind. It doesn’t care. It has no dog in your fight. You are playing with it.

Bob Lachance- REVA Global VA’s (09:49)
Not at all. And I think you can look at each exit as just a strategy. So let’s use a very good example. You have individuals that are rehabbers. When they learn how to do, let’s say, wholesaling, they realize now that all the leads that they have come in, because investors invest a lot of resources on marketing. That’s where it separates us. Investors…

This is what I’ve noticed in my market. Investors invest a lot more money than real estate agents do in their business. ⁓ you know, for whatever reason, why I don’t know, it’s just part of how that seems to work out. But everything that you look at as an investor, it’s monetizing those different leads that come in. So if you have a real estate agent license and you don’t want to list them, you could refer those leads out. If you have an opportunity to wholesale a property cause it doesn’t fit your buy box, you can do that. So.

I think everyone should look at having those skill sets to be able to change and pivot and be able to make resources, make money on those leads that come in because it does, you we spend a lot of resources by keeping the economy going and we hire a lot of people think about that one transaction, you know, who’s in there. You have a lender, you have an appraiser, right? I mean, you have mortgage brokers, have agents, you have attorneys, have

title companies, have so many different individuals on one transaction, whether it’s a wholesale, wholesale, novation, whatever it is, you know, that investor, which I love is a big part of the economy that turns, helps it to turn.

Micah Johnson (12:00)
Right. It’s real estate is a team sport, man. You can’t do anything by yourself. And it’s like you’re saying those marketing dollars, that’s the most precious thing you’re spending. It’s usually one of the higher things besides salaries that you’re putting out each month in your business and learning how to monetize more of them coming in. You’re already doing it. You’re already getting them into your business by now. When if you have to adjust and you’re describing what I see the best do.

They run it through the flagpole. All right. Is it a good wholesale? Okay, great. Is it, would it be a good flip? Okay, maybe not. Would it be a good buy and hold? Eh, probably not. Okay, well let’s go back down to wholesale. That’s the one. Boom, now it’s out. And you’re sending it instead of, oh, this ain’t, I can’t do anything with it. So that’s a trash lead. And it’s like, how many trash leads are in your system that if you just learned one more strategy, it’s a million dollars. There’s like a million dollars in your CRM most likely by just learning a new strategy in times like this.

Bob Lachance- REVA Global VA’s (12:56)
Yeah, and gives you honestly, it gives you more resources to be able to aid the seller and help the seller and whatever they’re looking to do. If they’re looking to get out and sell their property, you have more opportunities and options and services to offer as well. So which I think is very,

Micah Johnson (13:12)
Right, man, I used to call the kayak a real estate. A true real estate professional, when they show up for a seller, you can do it all if you’re really good at it. You got the listing option, you got your novations, you got your wholesale, you got your buy it yourselves, you got all of them because you never know, how most often, what is it, like 95 % or something of deals don’t work for wholesale? It’s an obnoxious amount that don’t work, right? So it’s, if all these other leads are coming into your system,

Bob Lachance- REVA Global VA’s (13:19)
you.

Micah Johnson (13:40)
Well, if you’re only trying to do that one thing and if you’re early in your career, okay, I get understanding one before you add another one. But if you’re really good at one and struggling, now you need to start researching and connecting with people. What is working in the market? What strategy is going off out here? And then how do I go learn that? Because it’s just, it’s man, your bottom line’s going down and it doesn’t have to.

Bob Lachance- REVA Global VA’s (13:59)
Yeah.

And that’s why this business too, mean, it’s kind of interesting. know NAR kind of hurt the realtors with all the stuff that was passed, I think it’s very important for all of us still, you got to work with agents because agents are a big part of any area, any state that do business. So I think that everyone has to be aware of that. You talked about team. You should have very good agents on your team.

They don’t have to be in your office. It could be some other company out there because obviously the more different individuals you do business with, the more network you have.

Micah Johnson (14:37)
Right. I’m a big proponent of adding in agents completely. I got started in real estate as an agent, working with an investor is what led me to the investment world is getting that chance to start seeing like, Whoa, this is a whole different ball game. This guy wants to buy a hundred houses and I don’t wait a second. Hold on. This is different. Like this is there’s some really good action there. And I had already agreed to work for free.

Bob Lachance- REVA Global VA’s (14:56)
Yeah. Okay.

Micah Johnson (15:02)
And that’s like, I was already out there being a realtor. I was already somebody that was hungry and doing something. And that really clicked with me of like, huh, there are other people out here. I mean, there’s a reason why people think realtors are the number one expert on homes. NAR spent a lot of money to make people believe that, but the really good realtors they are. They know their stuff and they’re out there every day in the market, having a good access or a good realtor pipeline. You want to talk about balancing out your system.

It is, it’s a game changer, especially cause it’s long term. It’ll keep feeding you.

Bob Lachance- REVA Global VA’s (16:18)
Yeah. And you nailed it. mean, and not every agent is created equal. You know that. And that’s the very important part, especially if someone’s new or listening to this, talk to as many agents as you can, but not every single person is made equal. I don’t know what the average amount, I don’t have statistics, but the average amount of deals that an agent does per year is, I don’t know what that is, but the top number is, is going to be probably, you probably have, they probably have what? 1 % of the market or 1 % of those agents have.

the 80-20 rule, whatever that number looks like, I think it’s important. Yeah.

Micah Johnson (16:50)
Exactly. More than that right now.

70 % of licensed realtors in America last year did not do a deal.

Bob Lachance- REVA Global VA’s (16:57)
Really? I don’t know that.

Micah Johnson (16:59)
I had a guy on the show

the other day that was telling me the data about it. And I was like, man, not surprised. Not surprised. That is like you said, if you’re new at this and you’re going out and meeting with realtors, first off, bought your vibe checking. Is this even somebody you want to work with? And do they work with investors? That’s a very key question because you’re going to run into ones that don’t. And they just really don’t understand the game is usually what’s going on. and because realtors aren’t really taught to work with investors.

Investors have taken on themselves to like teach realtors how to work with them. And the more that do, it opens up a completely new stable section of your business. It’s a real pipeline that starts to exist. And like you said, you get those right agents and you meet with them and you’ll know them when you’re talking to them out there. If you’re listening and watching you, cause you’ll talk to enough where you realize, okay, no, no, no. wow. Yep. That one’s going to do it. They know what I’m looking for. They get it. Okay. Let’s light them up.

Bob Lachance- REVA Global VA’s (17:54)
Right.

And one thing I do have to say is to watch out for is obviously know if you’re going to, as a buyer, if you’re going to have to pay the agent or if the seller is going to pay the agent because of the, you know, the most recent change, just ask them, you know, because a lot of times pay attention.

Micah Johnson (18:09)
Pay attention to it.

If you’re not familiar with what Bob’s talking about, I think it was last year, last year, maybe the year before, relatively in recent history, the NAR changed the commission rules for how agents get paid. Used to the seller was on the hook for the 6%. Now it’s different where the buying agent will be paid by the buyer sometimes. And you just need to know what’s going on, check to make sure and know which line item that.

commission’s gonna end up on, so it doesn’t sneak up and bite you at the end. All right, I wanna change gears a little bit from there, but I feel like it really leads right in. So, along with changing your strategy in your business when it comes to dis-fowing, when is it a good time to start bringing in a VA? I really wanna take advantage of your knowledge. So we got a lot of pivots happening in business, you’re doing these things. When is it a good time and what should somebody be looking for or thinking about when it comes to bringing a VA on?

Bob Lachance- REVA Global VA’s (19:06)
I think upfront, mean, you look at marketing and branding, right? We, like for us, we use these podcasts obviously to market and brand. And after we’re done with these podcasts, anyone could do this, right? You could go on a podcast as a guest, you could walk through a home with a camera. Once that video is created, you could send it over to your virtual assistant and they could post it up. They could create all the content. They could put all the subtitles. They could cut all of the videos up and they could post it on all your different sites, whether it’s…

you know, Instagram, Facebook, Tik TOK, et cetera, LinkedIn. So that would be the easiest thing because I know for me, I don’t know if you you run it. know you have teams now, but I know when I first started, ⁓ I couldn’t stand doing that. Like I couldn’t stand cutting videos. We used to run this, this podcast called Friday coffee break, but it was on, we had those flip phones, those flip phones. used to do it, plug it into my.

plug it into my computer and then I would do all of the copy and we would just send it out. Um, this is back in, I think it was 06, 07. So we were doing that every Friday. It was pretty cool. It was actually fun, but the production of it, what we found out is that it wasn’t consistent and then we’d skip a week. Then we’d skip another and we’d be, you know, it’s just, what happens is if you don’t have that help, you’ll realize that you’re not promoting yourself like you have to, because you know, we are in a different environment than we were a long time.

Micah Johnson (20:34)
legitimacy and credibility are at stake on social media now. People think it’s, just don’t want to share my life. I’m sorry if you’re not showing what you’re doing, that’s the first place people are checking. especially with, especially with real estate companies, it’s very, very important to have a good footprint out there because that’s one of the first places they’re going is, this person real? Are they on social media? Are you walking around houses? Prove to me you’re who you say you are. And that is, yeah, man, that’s how you do it. Like you’re saying,

The filming part’s always fun. I can’t stand the editing part either, but it’s man, zooming out, that’s the nature of business. You mentioned earlier, like as you grow, the different, you start to adjust and you start to change. if you are leading your company and you still are finding yourself editing videos, that is not the highest and best use of your time. You’re doing a…

$5, $6 an hour tasks that you can get paid for now. And you, what’s your rate? Thousand an hour, right? If you’re actually working. So you’re literally trading thousands of dollars for 20 bucks. So it’s, I love that just showing if you’re going to grow anything, you’re not going to do it alone. I really feel like that’s been the essence of our conversation this whole time is we can’t do anything alone. You can’t close a house alone. You don’t have all the skillsets. You’re not all the licensed things that you gotta be to do it.

And then even like your business, you can’t do every part alone and grow. Every entrepreneur hits the ceiling where they’re just maxed out. You run out of time, you’re out of brain energy. And the first thing that’s gonna go is the stuff you hate doing. Those things that just eat at your brain. And those are the little things that make a business keep going. So man, adding one in there for social media, that’s a strong one, the marketing section. Where’s another one that would be good?

Bob Lachance- REVA Global VA’s (22:23)
Yeah, lead generation, you know, it’s driving leads into your business. I think it’s important because I get this question all the time. saying, Hey, ⁓ I want a virtual assistant to close contracts for me. And I say, listen, that’s not what you should use a virtual assistant for. I’ve tried it. I’ve tried all these positions. It’s actually driving in leads to your business. So whether it’s you, your partner, or you know, when your acquisition guys closes that contract. And then I, it.

It’s a higher level skill. talked before this call about, you know, one of the things that we are doing right now, it’s a lot of training on sales, right? I think we know this, everything in this world is sales. look at, look at this phone all the time, everything on Instagram, whether it’s politicians, whether it’s business people, whether it’s teachers, it doesn’t matter. Everything is sales. A teacher has to sell their kids onto listening to them. So

Everything out there is sales. So we have to look at that as, know, are you going to have ask a virtual assistant to, ⁓ teach or sell your kid to stay in front of a computer so they can learn something. It’s definitely not going to happen. Right. It’s the same thing. So use them to drive in leads. Also use virtual assistance on the Dispo side, on the TC side, transaction coordinating. We have a, we have a ton of virtual assistants that work with property managers as well in accounting.

So they all fit within all the workflow.

Micah Johnson (23:54)
I love that man. it’s in positioning to them, to their strength. have heard a lot of, know, I wanted to get them to do the closing thing too, but you nailed it. You wouldn’t, you wouldn’t have them go pick up a box full of 50 grand for you, would you? Right? That’s, that’s not their job. That is, that is, it’s like you said, it’s driving it in. So when you’re thinking about bringing somebody in for your business, it’s positioning them well, getting them in that spot. And what are those places where you, you don’t need to be?

Right, so if you don’t have your standard operating procedures written out, write them out, because that’s where you’ll really be able to identify what can I offload, who can I give this to, because they’re going to need that for the training portion. besides the standard operating procedures, is there anything else someone would need to be set up for before they bring a V.A. in?

Bob Lachance- REVA Global VA’s (24:44)
Yeah, you know, we have a hundred, a hundred plus task lists too. They could download our website just to give them ideas as well. But here’s the, you nailed it. Be prepared. And this is, this is what we see the most successful individuals do. They know why they want the virtual. They know what tasks they want that virtual assistant to do, because what you’re running into sometimes, unfortunately, is that they come in and they say, you know, I need all this help. And then we start talking to them. what helped me? Well, I don’t know. And they just.

They’re not really, they’re kind of scattered a little bit. And that’s how I failed when I first started using my first virtual assistant. I didn’t know what I wanted them to do, but I knew I needed help until I actually stepped back. looked at this phone. I realized to your point, I wrote down all of the tasks that were not producing income income producing tasks versus non income producing tasks. And those are the stuff that I started off shooting, whether it’s.

Building a buyer’s list, whether it’s lead generation, whether it’s social media, whether it’s helping with, know, inputting stuff on the MLS, if it’s helping transaction coordinating, if it’s, you know, lease renewals, leases on the property management, there’s a larger list of stuff you could do, but just need to know exactly what your biggest pain point is.

Micah Johnson (25:57)
It’s Clarity. It lands on it. That stretches through your whole business. So I really appreciate you bringing that point up. All right. So you’ve been doing this a long time. You’ve got success, not only in real estate investing, but the VA business along with it. You’ve been using them in your own business. You’ve laid out what we need to look for and prep for. You mentioned a checklist. So for those who are listening and watching, where can they go find that checklist at to download themselves and then possibly set up a call with you, reach out to you if they need to.

Bob Lachance- REVA Global VA’s (26:25)
Yeah, the easiest way is to

go to REVA global.com, R E V A global.com. have the a hundred plus tasks list right on our website. You could just download it. And there’s also a strategy session button that you could also jump on a call. you have any questions at all, you know, just book a call and we’ll get on a call.

Micah Johnson (26:43)
Thank you so much for sharing. Appreciate you being here today. Everybody will listen and watching in, check the show notes. We’ll have Bob’s website there. Like I say on this show, reach out to the real professionals. Talk to people who are doing this day in and day out. Get their information. This is a changing business and landscape all the time. Work with the folks. Learn from people just like Bob. Make sure you’re setting yourself up for success. So thanks again, Bob, for being here.

Everybody, you got value out of today’s episode, please like this episode, share it with someone else that needs to learn more about VAs and how to pick them. And as always, don’t forget, subscribe to our podcast. We appreciate every single one of you that follows along with us out there. We’ve got more conversations coming up with folks just like Bob out there building a real business in the industry. Thanks so much. We’ll see you on the next episode.

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How Real Estate Investors Must Pivot Strategies in 2025 or Get Left Behind

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