Helping Hands

After working past midnight once too often, real estate agent Stephanie Vitacco decided she needed some help. So she hired an assistant to help with paperwork.

Now, about five years later, Vitacco employs four full-time assistants to handle everything from planting open-house flags on lawns to keeping escrow documents in order.

“If you are a truly busy agent, you cannot provide good service unless you have a staff,” said Vitacco, who sells about 200 homes annually as a Fred Sands agent in Northridge.

Vitacco is part of a small but growing number of real estate agents whose sales volumes are great enough to allow them to hire an assistant or an entire staff, creating their own small businesses under the umbrella of an established real estate brokerage.

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After their ranks shrunk during the real estate bust of the 1990s, demand for assistants is growing again as the Southern California market picks up steam. Real estate agents have employed assistants to keep on top of increasingly complex government rules and forms, legal documents and company paperwork. Some brokerage firms--which typically supply minimal office support--will pay for all or part of an assistant’s salary if the agent meets high sales goals.

There are relatively few agents like Vitacco who make enough on commissions to afford a payroll that can exceed $100,000 annually. But agents who sell at least 15 to 20 homes a year probably need some part-time support, said Tim Corliss, incoming president of the California Assn. of Realtors.

“The major agents have gotten used to that idea,” said Corliss, who has employed marketing and escrow assistants in the past. “It’s almost like [operating] an office within an office.”

In the past, successful, busy agents would have simply started up their own real estate brokerage. But these days, an upstart firm would have a hard time competing with established industry giants--such as Fred Sands and Prudential Jon Douglas--that dominate the market with huge staffs and fat advertising and marketing budgets. Under state law, agents can only sell homes if they are affiliated with a licensed real estate broker.

Jan Thornton, a Coldwell Banker real estate agent in Arcadia, figures she would have to spend thousands of dollars on promotion, set up a Web site and establish other expensive operations if she started her own brokerage firm. “I would not go out on my own--the thought of it scares me,” said Thornton, who has worked as an agent since 1989.

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Instead, she employs a personal assistant at $13 an hour to create fliers on a computer, stand guard at open houses and carry out other duties. “That frees me up to sell. She keeps me organized and on track,” said Thornton.

The use of assistants, however, has triggered concern in the past. Some real estate brokers and industry regulators were concerned that assistants might be violating state rules that make it illegal to sell real estate without a state license and required training. As a result, the state Department of Real Estate issued guidelines that limit personal assistants to support roles. For example, assistants can greet customers and hand out material at an open house but cannot talk about the conditions and terms of a possible sale.

“We don’t want the assistant doing the work of an agent,” said Sands, who estimates that about 3% of his agents employ assistants.

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The use of assistants--some of whom are aspiring agents--can also confuse customers who often do not understand the distinction between agents and assistants. For example, a customer walking through an open house may become frustrated when the assistant on duty cannot answer questions.

Vitacco, the Fred Sands agent in Northridge, avoids confusion by telling her customers up front that she uses assistants. She keeps her staff of four assistants busy handling marketing, escrows, the inspection and maintenance of listings and office work. That leaves Vitacco, who has been an agent for nearly a decade, free to focus on selling.

“You can’t wear all the hats and do a good job,” she said. “A lot of things will slip through the cracks.”