The short answer: a commercial assistant carries the deal file and the calendar around it — the listing package before the offer, the document chase after the LOI, the dates that carry consequences, and the four-party coordination between attorneys, title, the lender and the broker across the table. The negotiation, the terms and the advice stay with the broker. This walks a deal from marketing through closing and shows where an assistant picks up each stage.
Where Do Commercial Deals Actually Stall?
They stall in the middle. The listing gets built, the LOI gets signed, and then the file enters a six-week stretch where nothing is difficult and everything is waiting on somebody. The estoppels are out. The lender wants the last two years of operating statements. The survey came back with an encroachment the attorney has not looked at yet. Nobody is blocked, exactly, and nobody is counting the days either.
That stretch is where a broker's evenings go, and it is almost entirely coordination: requesting, logging, chasing, relaying, and keeping a date list that nobody else is keeping. It is also the part of the job that scales worst, because the amount of it is set by how many deals you have rather than how good you are.
One commercial agent at KW Memorial described the shape of the problem at her 60-day check-in, having just put together the biggest set of listings she had ever carried:
“So it’s great to have all these listings, but they’re going to close at some point. And so he’s focused on that while I’m focusing on the next round of business.”
— Melanne Carpenter, KW Commercial · 60-day check-in
Before the Offer: The Package and the List
The work ahead of an LOI is assembly, and assembly is delegable. Your assistant builds the offering memorandum or flyer in your brokerage's format from your material: property details and photographs, site and floor plans, rent roll and operating summaries, demographics and traffic counts, and the sale and lease comps pulled from the platforms you already subscribe to.
Then the listing goes where it goes — CoStar, LoopNet, Crexi and your own site — and the prospect list gets built, cleaned and worked: outreach sent, tours scheduled, the follow-up that happens after a tour when a broker is already at the next one. Pricing and positioning are yours. Whether the flyer went out on Tuesday is not a decision, it is a task.
After the LOI: The Document Chase
This is the stage that produces the most relief, because it is almost pure logistics with real consequences. Once terms are agreed, the assistant opens the file with title or escrow, circulates the executed documents, and builds the due diligence request list:
- Rent rolls and operating statements, usually two to three years
- Leases and every amendment, which is where the gaps show up
- Estoppel certificates and SNDAs, requested early because tenants are slow
- Service and vendor contracts, and which ones survive closing
- Title commitment and exception documents, survey, environmental
- Zoning, certificates of occupancy, tax bills and utility history
Each item gets requested, logged on arrival, indexed where every party can find it, and chased when it does not come. Reading what comes back and deciding what it means belongs to the client, the broker and counsel. Knowing on day nine that the estoppels are still out does not.
How this works: VRA virtual assistants provide administrative and operational support under the direction of the client. They do not provide legal, financial, or other advice requiring professional licensure. Access and permissions are determined by the client and are subject to the client’s own security, confidentiality, and compliance procedures.
Which Dates Carry Real Consequences?
Residential has deadlines. Commercial has deadlines that cost money on the day they pass, which is why the date list is the part of the file worth building properly: feasibility and inspection expiration, the date earnest money goes hard, financing contingency deadlines, estoppel and SNDA return dates, title and survey objection windows, and closing.
Your assistant keeps that list and sets reminders far enough ahead to be acted on rather than reacted to. Whether to waive, extend or object is the broker's call with the client. Arriving at the date already knowing it is coming is the coordinator's contribution, and it is worth more than it sounds.
Coordinating Four Parties Who Are All Waiting
A commercial closing has attorneys on both sides, title or escrow, a lender, the other broker and the client, and most delays are not disagreements. They are four parties each waiting on one of the others with nobody counting. The coordinator is the person who counts: relaying status, sending documents where they need to go, collecting signatures, tracking what each party still owes, and raising the item that has gone quiet before it becomes the reason the closing moves.
After closing there is a short tail that tends to go undone — the commission invoice, the file closed out properly, the CRM updated so the next conversation with that client starts from something, and the closing gift or follow-up that turns one deal into a referral.
Which Systems Does It Work In, and What Does It Cost?
The platforms you already run are the ones your assistant works in: CoStar, LoopNet and Crexi on the listing side, your CRM and document storage, and whatever your brokerage uses for transaction files. We commit to 90% proficiency in your systems within 5 business days of starting with you, and assistants complete a mandatory four-week, instructor-led training program before touching client work.
Pricing is flat and published: $1,500 a month for a full-time assistant at 40 hours a week, $800 a month for part-time at 20 hours, invoiced on the 20th, with no hidden fees and no upcharge by industry, subject to applicable agreement terms. Set that against a commercial deal's coordination load rather than against an hourly comparison: part-time at $800 covers the document chase and the date list on a handful of concurrent files, and the arithmetic that matters is whether it buys back enough hours to source one more deal a year.
The service page for commercial teams is here, and what three commercial agents handed over in their first sixty days is the version with real files in it.
Questions Commercial Brokers Ask
What does a commercial deal coordinator handle from LOI to closing?
The file and the calendar around it. Once terms are agreed, the coordinator assembles and circulates the signed documents, opens the file with title or escrow, builds the due diligence request list, chases what comes back, indexes it where everyone can find it, tracks the dates that carry consequences, and keeps the attorneys, the lender, the other broker and the client current on where things stand. Negotiation, terms and advice stay with the broker; what moves off the broker’s desk is the coordination that otherwise happens at nine at night.
Who tracks the critical dates on a commercial deal?
Your coordinator, against a dated list rather than memory. Feasibility and inspection period expiration, the date earnest money goes hard, financing contingency deadlines, estoppel and SNDA return dates, title and survey objection windows, and the closing date itself. Each one gets a reminder far enough ahead to act on rather than react to. The decision to waive, extend or object belongs to the broker and the client — the coordinator’s job is that nobody arrives at one of those dates by surprise.
Can an assistant prepare an offering memorandum?
Yes, from your material and your template. Property details, photographs, site and floor plans, rent roll and operating summaries, demographics and traffic counts, comparable sales and lease comps pulled from the platforms you subscribe to, assembled into the OM or flyer format your brokerage uses. Pricing, positioning and what the narrative claims are yours; the assembly, the version control and the distribution list are not a good use of a broker’s evening.
Can an assistant collect and organize due diligence?
This is usually the single biggest relief on a commercial file. Rent rolls and operating statements, leases and every amendment, estoppel certificates, service and vendor contracts, the title commitment and exception documents, survey, environmental reports, zoning and certificates of occupancy, tax bills and utility history — requested, logged as they arrive, indexed in a shared folder structure, and chased when they do not. Reading what comes back and deciding what it means is the broker’s and the client’s work, and counsel’s.
Can an assistant coordinate with attorneys, title and the lender?
Yes, as the person who keeps the thread moving. Opening with title or escrow, sending documents where they need to go, relaying status, collecting signatures, tracking what each party still owes, and surfacing the item that has gone quiet. Most deals do not stall over a disagreement; they stall because four parties are each waiting for one of the others and nobody is counting the days. Substantive legal and lending conversations stay with the people licensed to have them.
Does the assistant work on closing deals or on finding the next ones?
Both are possible, but the sequence most brokers land on is coordination first. The deals already in hand have dates attached and cannot be deferred; prospecting can, which is why prospecting is what gets dropped when a pipeline fills. Handing over the coordination is what frees the hours that go back into sourcing. Research, prospect list building, CRM hygiene and outreach follow-up can sit with the same assistant once the deal workflow is running cleanly.
The same coordination load lands on investors acquiring property, without a broker in the middle.
Not sure which part of the deal file to hand over first? Book a short call and we’ll go through it stage by stage, from the listing package to the closing table, and come back with a specific recommendation, part-time or full-time.