Buyer leads are comprised of the individuals actively ready to purchase and looking for someone to help them find a home. Generating real estate buyer leads can skyrocket your business profits, and it doesn’t have to be costly. We talked to agents generating these specific real estate leads to learn how they do it.
Here are the top 19 methods successful agents use to generate real estate buyer leads:
1. Place Facebook Ads
Maya Madison, Real Estate Agent, Keller Williams
Generate tons of buyer leads through Facebook advertising. You can get 50 to 100 leads from a well-placed, targeted ad for about $50 to $100. All you need to do is use the free Facebook stock images, the lead form, and text that encourages them to sign up to receive a list of new homes, a list of recently sold homes in their neighborhoods, or to advertise special financing in a certain area.
2. Use REDX for FSBO Leads
Maggie Aland, Writer, Fit Small Business
A subscription service like REDX can really amp up your pipeline by delivering buyer leads with high intent. For only $39.99 per month, REDX sends local FSBO leads with their contact information to your inbox, making your prospecting routine easy.
Feel free to read more about FSBO leads, providers, costs, and how to convert them.
3. Write About Mortgages
Dan Green, Founder, Growella
For buyer leads, use your website to write about mortgages. Because so much home data is available online, today’s renters seek out REALTORS® much later in the home buying journey; they’re looking to loan officers first now. So, write about mortgages and skip right to the top of the funnel.
4. Review Public Records
Earl White, Co-Founder, House Heroes Realty
I am often looking for “volume” buyers (ones that I can go regularly to to buy property that I’ve identified for sale or am selling myself). Here is my best tip to find buyer leads (I actually do this nearly on a daily basis): Review public records.
Monitor the owners of recent sales in your real estate niche. Run their name in the local appraiser website to determine how many properties they own and recent purchase activity. If you find a company that is buying real estate on a regular basis, that’s a great buyer to have on your list. Not only are they interested in the area, but they have the financing to perform.
For similar tips on how to find leads with money to spend, visit our article on How to Find Cash Buyers.
5. Become a Zillow Premier Agent
Marc Prosser, Co-Founder, Fit Small Business
The Zillow Premier Agent program is an outstanding value for generating real estate leads. By allowing you to be the sole agent on your listings, buyers frequently contact you for further information, giving you either both sides of the commission or a great new lead if they want to look elsewhere.
Zillow is the largest real estate marketplace on the internet, so it just makes sense to be where the most buyers are searching. By also being listed on non-Premier Agent listings in your area, the program gets you visibility and outreach in your local area that is hard to find elsewhere.
6. Get to Know Your Database Contacts on a Personal Level
Hillary Robert, marketing strategist, Social Shepherd Marketing
My best tip is: Get to know your database. Consider every new connection or handshake as a lead and treat each of them as a human being. Get to know them, their family makeup, their priorities, and their careers. Congratulate them on milestones, anniversaries, and wish them a happy birthday.
People like to feel important. Making your leads and clients feel special is the biggest difference between a lifelong brand evangelist and a passive lead who will forget all about you when it’s time to buy.
7. Use Mobile Marketing & Offer Assistance
Reesy Floyd-Thompson, Owner, The Digital Wonder Woman
One of the best ways to get buyer leads is with Facebook advertising. Here’s my quick and simple strategy. Put a good offer in front of a potential buyer, i.e., listings, down payment assistance/VA programs, homebuyers guides, foreclosure lists, etc. Potential buyers respond well to offers offering financial assistance. Run a lead generation ad on mobile devices. Target potential buyers within a 10-mile radius. Spend at least $15 a day. These tips are guaranteed to bring in leads.
8. Use Real Geeks Home Valuation Landing Pages
Gavin Graham, Editor, Fit Small Business
Real Geeks offers a home valuation landing page that attracts potential sellers, who then become future buyers. Think long-term and outside the box for real estate lead generation as the industry is always changing, and be sure to consider new ways to fill your pipeline.
9. Use Craigslist
Jordan Santiago, Founder & CEO, Crowned Mane Real Estate
Craigslist is a great and undercover source to get buyers. If you go on Craigslist, type in your county or state followed by the words “real estate wanted.” You will find a minimum of 10 buyers at a time. Call the numbers, or email the emails that are there and tell them what you do in real estate.
You can learn more about how to tap into this lead source by visiting our article on How to Get Real Estate Leads on Craigslist.
10. Network with Everyone
Lauren Hazlett, Real Estate Agent, MORE Realty
Nothing beats a warm referral.
I tell everyone I do real estate—my friends, my kitty’s vet, my barista—and I am their person. My most recent buyer is my CPA—why? Because I am friendly and talk to him not only when I need my taxes done but at other times too. I always update him on the exciting new listing I have and darn it—when his friends need an agent, “he has a girl.”
That’s the best lead you will get. Make contact, keep contact, make referral partners.
11. Be Thoughtful
Chelsey Heil, CEO, Creatives by Chelsea
The best tip to get buyer leads is one I actually learned from a friend of mine. He created a gift-giving system for clients who purchased homes from him. Here’s how it works: You send gifts to the clients for every holiday to remind them about you and encourage referrals.
As clients send you referrals, you up the amount you spend on that client’s gifts. It’s a very simple system that works insanely well. Honestly, it’s so simple that you wouldn’t think it would be such a game changer. But I’ve watched him get dozens and possibly hundreds of referrals from clients because of this method.
12. Use Targeted Social Media Ad Campaigns
Jlyne Hanback, Real Estate Agent, Keller Williams
One of my best tips to get buyer leads is to advertise on social media to people who are looking for information about renting to own. There are several great programs out there that will help people legitimately rent to own a home, and in the process, I often find potential buyers who actually don’t need to rent to own—they can speak with a lender (whom I help connect them with) and find out that they qualify to buy.
This works because you are connecting directly with people who have an interest in buying, and with a bit of education and follow-up on my end, it is quite possible to turn these people directly into buyers.
See examples of successful ads and learn why they work by visiting our article on Real Estate Ads.
13. Work Your Online Network
Jeremy Marsan, Writer, Fit Small Business
When it comes to generating real estate buyer leads, nothing will work for you like your own network. While most people think of their network only as in-person contacts, there are usually hundreds of people that you know on LinkedIn or other social media platforms. Be sure you are visible, advertise what you do, connect genuinely, and that you’re smart about how you post.
To learn more about posting on Instagram, one of the best social media platforms to showcase your listings, our article on Instagram for real estate will take you from new user to pro in no time at all.
14. Try a Postcard Campaign
Evan Roberts, Real Estate Agent, Dependable Homebuyers
We send postcards to luxury apartments to target potential buyer leads. Our reason is that these are individuals who can afford to buy a home but choose to live in an apartment in the short term. At some point, they will either decide it is time to settle down or grow a family, and we are the first real estate agents they contact.
15. Create Compelling Social Content
Eric Sztanyo, Real Estate Agent, Team Sztanyo
For me, it’s simple: create content and share it on social.
Most real estate agents are doing outbound marketing. I focus ONLY on inbound marketing. So, I create a ton of content on my blog and YouTube channel, and I share regularly on social media. When buyers see consistent activity and closings, they call me.
16. Have a Lead Generating Website
Shawn Breyer, Owner, Sell My House Fast Atlanta
Provide value through a high conversion website. Your website can be an asset that provides a stream of organic leads for your business. We create blog content around niches in our industry that we serve.
If we are creating content about probate, we will create a ton of helpful blogs on how to navigate the probate process, what to do when siblings are involved, lay out the options for selling the house, and how to handle the legalities. The benefit here is that you build trust and credibility with your prospect as an expert in the niche, making them more likely to convert into a lead.
17. Be Inclusive in Advertising Language
Robert Hernandez, Real Estate Broker/Investor, Cash For Houses
We use Craigslist when selling our properties in different languages. Should other brokers not use different languages in their ads or marketing efforts, they are missing the target. We have been working the multiple language markets since 2007. Our closing results speak for themselves.
18. Get a Free IDX Real Estate Website with Placester
Placester offers free IDX real estate websites to all NAR members, at a value of $240 per year. This easy-to-use website is mobile-friendly, easy to set up, and easy to navigate. Best of all, it includes IDX features that attract real estate buyer leads by allowing home shoppers to use your website as they search for homes.
If you’re feeling ambitious and have an afternoon to spare, feel free to check out our article on how to build your own IDX real estate website.
19. Buy Leads through Bold Leads
At $269 per month, Bold Leads offers exclusive buyer leads in your ZIP code. With lead exclusivity, you are the only agent with solid leads in your ZIP code, so potential buyers don’t have multiple agents contacting them and you don’t have further competition for the real estate leads you’ve purchased.
To learn more about Bold Leads and other services that might benefit you, see our article on where to buy real estate leads.
The Bottom Line
Generating fantastic real estate buyer leads requires finding ways to add value to those who are most likely to require your services. Real estate leads can be purchased, but with the availability of free websites like Placester mixed with creativity and time, you can generate many of these leads on your own to get started.
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