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SubscribeWondering what’s the best way to generate leads in real estate this 2023/2024?
The real estate market can be tough to crack. With a lot of money involved in deals for different stakeholders, the same cliché tactics to generate leads don’t exactly work. This is truer in 2023/2024. You need better approaches.
More importantly, to ensure business sustainability, it’s important to recognize that lead generation is not just about attracting new leads.
It’s about generating a consistent flow of quality leads and nurturing them to a point where they are ready to buy.
In this blog, that’s what we’ll discuss—we’ll cover various real estate lead generation ideas that have worked for some of the most successful companies and agents in the industry.
By the end, you’ll hopefully have a fresh perspective on how to effectively capture high-quality real estate leads.
Real Estate Buyer Lead Generation Will Help You Reach Your Business Goals
Being able to consistently produce real estate lead generation information will improve your organizational structure and profitability by generating new revenue streams.
Further, it sets individual agents apart from others who might not have these skills or be proactive enough to build them.
The only challenge that occurs with real estate lead generation organically is that it has to be done regularly so as not to let leads slip away!
You can do this through various methods such as hosting events, offline advertising, and paid lead generation services—any combination works just fine!
Every agency is looking for quality real estate leads. It seems that the harder you try, the harder it is to get real estate leads that turn into quality clients.
But no matter how tough it might be, you have to keep trying. So, here are the 30 best real estate lead generation ideas to explore.
1. Run Facebook to Find Buyer and Seller Leads
Facebook, with a huge base of active users, turns out to be a lucrative platform for running real estate ads. You can find the perfect customer fit for any kind of property you wish to sell on Facebook.
Here are a few tips for creating a spot-on real estate Facebook ads strategy:
i. Create ads using a combination of behavior, location, and demographic factors or on the basis of the relationship status of the audience.
ii. Bring your properties to life with video ads or carousel ads for showing multiple properties in a single ad.
iii. Create custom ads for lookalike audiences using an email address or phone number. Set up Facebook Pixels on your website to target website visitors.
iv. Exclude audiences that are not potential buyers. You may want to exclude these audiences from your real estate ads: National Association of Realtors, National Association of Real Estate Brokers, etc.
2. Use an Auto Dialer for More Real Estate Leads
Cold calling is a timeless lead-generation process. But it is a time-consuming effort. That too, with minimal results.
Cold calling with smart automation, like Auto Dialer, helps you build an efficient lead generation process. This automates the process of dialing.
You don’t have to manually dial each contact. The auto dialer software does the job for you. Additionally, features like auto-saving call details, recordings, and notes, minimize manual tasks for agents.
Since manual tasks are automated, you spare a lot of time on the more productive tasks. In this way, you can make as many as 100 cold calls a day and generate more real estate leads.
3. Create Google Ads for Real Estate Listings
Google has dominated the search engine space, owning more than 75% of the market share. Your buyer is highly likely to Google a property before actually visiting it.
Google Ads are beneficial for displaying the listing to potential buyers of a specific area. Use PPC campaigns to give buyers a fair idea of your listings, price, and contact details.
We’ve compiled a set of tips for effective Real Estate Google ads:
i. Use negative keywords while creating campaigns. If someone searches using a negative keyword, your ad will be displayed for those keywords.
This not only maximizes the outcome of your campaigns by reaching out to interested buyers but also lowers the cost per click (CPC).
ii. Add call extensions in the ad copy to enable leads to connect with you quickly.
iii. Add a price extension in your ad copy so that only interested leads (those who are fine with the budget) will contact you.
John Mucilli, the owner of IFLIPNY Properties, who has dabbled with multiple lead generation strategies, says, “As a real estate professional, I quickly realized that direct mail gave me a poor response rate.
Most recipients called to yell that their house wasn’t for sale, coupled with a few not-so-nice words.
Eventually, I turned to Google PPC and replaced my direct mailing budget with a PPC budget, but the lead generation and conversion rate have multiplied!”
For more info on the cost of running paid campaigns, check out this guide to PPC prices.
4. Create a Free, Helpful Tool
One of the best ways you can attract leads to your real estate business is with a free, helpful tool.
It’s likely the real estate agents you’re targeting don’t have time to create these tools themselves, so this represents a great opportunity for you to create something that will be valued by potential customers.
Your tool should directly relate to their business—for example, it could be a checklist that helps ensure they’ve dotted all their i’s and crossed all their t’s before closing on a house.
If you were marketing to homebuyers instead of real estate agents, it could be a mortgage calculator or other tool related to first-time homeownership.
Whatever it is, make sure it’s something they can use in their day-to-day work as an agent—or else they won’t find it valuable enough to download.
5. Build Partnerships for Passive Lead Generation
Network with your local businesses to form mutually beneficial partnerships. Your local investors, accountants, financial planners, etc., can also be a great source for lead generation.
You may also team up with experienced listing agents to boost your real estate lead generation strategy. Co-host local events and tap into local alliances to generate leads.
Another great way to generate more leads is by partnering up with a real estate conversion specialist. Your website is a gold mine for leads. By partnering up with a conversion specialist to optimise your website with tools like chatbots, you can turn your website into a revenue generating machine.
Shanon McNulty, winner of the President’s Club Award, Medallion Club Award, and a Licensed Realtor of We Love Maple Ridge, shares: “I have built a strong relationship with a local contractor who specializes in renovations.
When he hears someone wants to sell their home, he gives them my card and lets me know their information. This has generated many leads for me and is a great source of passive leads.“
6. Use Bulk SMS Campaigns for Leads and Referrals
Bulk SMS is very low-hanging fruit when it comes to real estate lead generation. SMS, with a high opening rate of 98%, turns out to be a low-cost, high-ROI tool for lead generation.
You can send out mass opt-in texts to prospects and send offers/discounts to trigger actions.
Bulk SMS is also great for creating referral campaigns to generate further leads. Offer vouchers, coupon codes, etc., to your existing leads for successful referrals.
Here’s a tip! Integrate your CRM with JustCall so you can send automated texts whenever you add leads to your CRM.
7. Become an SEO Authority
SEO or inbound marketing is perhaps the best ROI strategy for real estate lead generation. Many real estate leaders are leveraging SEO for this purpose.
James McGrath, Co-founder of the NYC real estate brokerage, Yoreevo, shares, “At the local level, there won’t be as much competition, and you can cater your effort to landmarks or locations of interest for nearby home buyers.
For example, you can write an article about homes on a nearby lake or condos downtown. Getting in front of buyers searching helps because they’ll see you as an authority and also have a highly targeted search.“
Sarah Braud, CEO of Braud Creative, has a unique approach to targeting local buyers and sellers. “One of my favorite lead gen strategies for realtors is a quiz meant to help users find their ideal neighborhood.
Once you have their email, then you can begin sending geo-targeted options of homes for sale in their perfect neighborhood!”
Have a look at this quiz that’s turning tables.
Nathaniel, owner of The Expert Home Buyers has got really great results with SEO.
He shares, “Up until this point, I have been doing Google PPC advertising, which has brought some very good deals my way. Only recently have I started seeing the fruition of my SEO efforts.
Last week, I had 2 very motivated leads come in, and this week I have had another. These drive my cost per lead down significantly, and ultimately it will go to zero.
At that point, I will be running a business that has 0 costs per deal as opposed to right now, where my cost per deal is about $2500.”
8. Round-the-Clock Support with SMS Bots
Using SMS bots for your real estate business is going to be evolutionary. SMS bots have made it possible to send automated text responses, enabling a round-the-clock presence.
Leads can simply send their query as text to the business phone number. JustCall’s SMS Bot will then send accurate replies by fetching information from the database or CRM.
You don’t need to be on the phone 24×7 to answer customers’ queries. An active SMS bot can respond to these queries.
It can also send details of all the available properties without any human intervention. This way, you won’t miss any leads because of your unavailability.
9. Go Live at a Property on Social Media
Social media is now becoming the business front face for real estate, amongst other industries. Live video coverage of properties on Youtube, Instagram, and Facebook helps generate traction.
You can use live-streaming sessions to showcase entire properties. Make sure that you have good lighting and equipment for the broadcast.
You also save the live videos and later send them to the interested leads who were unable to catch the live broadcast.
10. Advertise Open House Using Voice Mail
Circle prospecting is the age-old technique for connecting with homeowners in your area. But with stiff competition, every door in your neighborhood is already stuffed with door hangers and postcards.
Moreover, the cost doesn’t just end up on printing door hangers. There’s the delivery and distribution of the door handles as well.
Instead, you can take circle prospecting to the 21st century by sending voice mail to the homeowners near your listing.
11. Catch Leads through a Website ‘Click to Call’ Button
Most websites and landing pages in the real estate industry have a bounce rate in the range of 45-70%. With such a high bounce rate, you need to cater to each and every lead that’s landing on your website.
With JustCall’s Website Click to Call button, your website visitors get an option to connect with you the moment they land on your website.
This ensures that whenever the lead is on your website and they have any queries, you’re there to assist them.
JustCall’s Website Click to Call button has 2 more additional features: Drop a Message and Request Callback. These features can be useful in case the lead just wants to send a message or schedule a meeting for later.
Looking to get a click-to-call button for your website? Get a complete walk-through of the feature with our experts.
12. Get Seller Leads from Courthouses
Competition for low hanging leads in real estate is pretty fierce in almost every region. Seller leads from the courthouse are highly motivated to get their properties sold.
You can use these leads to sell more in fairly less time. Here are the different types of leads you can get from the courthouse:
i. Foreclosures: You can find newly filed foreclosures at the courthouse on a bulletin board for newly filed foreclosures.
ii. Delinquent Property Taxes: Contact the tax office for a list of properties with delinquent taxes owed. Some of them even publish them in the newspapers every year.
iii. Out-of-Town Owners: Most property owners residing outside the town might be interested in selling their property. You can get a list of these from the Tax Department or from businesses dealing with this information.
13. Equip Chatbots for Real Estate Websites and Campaigns
Whether a person is looking to sell, buy, rent, or inquire about a home, they will invariably end up filling out a bunch of lead capture forms on several real estate web pages.
Are you subjecting your website visitors to boring lead-capturing forms? Now, that can be a very wrong move.
Everyone knows how to fill out a form, but almost no one likes doing so. In a competitive industry like real estate, response time is key, and personalization is a differentiator.
Real estate chatbots are an effective way to fix the form problem. They transform the actual process of sharing lead information from a mundane task into a conversation.
This makes the lead generation experience feel more engaging. Some realtor firms have experienced an immediate increase in conversion rate by a factor of 2-3x with a landing page chatbot.
14. Reach Out to FSBOs
FSBOs (For Sale by Owner) are difficult to handle, and getting their property converted into a listing is no doubt a herculean task.
But there is a lot of potential in FSBOs prospects. According to NAR, on average, homeowners suffer a loss of 32.5% if they sell the property on their own. One reason is that they don’t have experience in selling homes.
So, where to find contact details for FSBO listings? The answer: MLS, Zillow, Byownerdaily, and other listing sites.
And what’s the best time to get on a call with the homeowners? Most of the FSBOs properties are listed between week 3 and week 5. You can only know the right time by constantly following up with the owner.
You may also want to check out Jeff Glover’s FSBO script for converting FSBOs into seller clients for your real estate business.
15. Purchase an Intergenerational Family Mailing List
Tap into intergenerational mailing lists. Get mailing lists to contact adults with elderly parents.
Nick Schiera, the owner of Schiera Properties LLC, says, “Many adult children are forced to make decisions for their elderly parents who may no longer be able to live on their own.
By visiting Listability, a specialty mailing list broker, you can get access to millions of homeowners whose elderly parents have moved out of the primary home and gone into senior living, assisted living, or nursing homes.“
16. Find and Target Expired Listings
If you’re not getting any luck on FSBOs, expired listings can be a good option. It’s easier to convert expired listings into seller clients.
Since most owners are frustrated with their former agents, you’ll have to be careful handling their calls. Perhaps, you may want to explain new strategies that would help them get their house sold.
You can find the expired listing from MLS or other listing sites like Zillow or Byownerdaily.
17. Target Gen Z and Millenials
Many real estate businesses are tapping into gen Z and millennial sensitivities as well. Matthew Myre, the founder of Berri Properties and a new-age entrepreneur in the real estate industry, refused the traditional lead gen methods.
Instead of cold calling and door knocking, he suggests other mediums: “Realtors can target millennials and Gen Z prospects by creating and curating digital content that suits their real estate needs.
Since most buyers are turning to online platforms before ever talking to a Realtor, it’s crucial for agents to build their online presence.
Realtors need to create consistent quality content that focuses on a targeted niche of keywords to rank on Google.
Blogs are a great way to do this, but you can also see great results from videos, which can be repurposed into blogs and podcasts.“
18. Use Social Media for Generating More Leads
Looking for online real estate lead generation ideas? Why not explore the power of social media?
Social media is a great platform to connect with prospective buyers and sellers and build reach. It helps you build a stable real estate pipeline.
Use the Facebook Messenger option on your website so visitors can directly have a conversation with you. You can connect with potential leads and, eventually, get their contacts.
Joining Facebook and LinkedIn groups assist greatly in getting new leads and connections.
Jeff Fisher, who has over 25 years of experience in real estate, says, “An excellent lead generation tactic is using video in social media ads.
On average, US viewers spend about eight hours and 33 minutes per week watching various types of online videos.
Video is personal, attention-grabbing, and easy to consume. Video ads build trust, garner much higher engagement rates on social media, and relay a lot of information in a short amount of time.”
Post regularly. Some people post every day, but at least once a week is recommended to stay relevant.
Don’t just post listings, either—keep things interesting by posting quotes, videos as well as links to resources when appropriate!
19. Stay in Touch with Old Leads
It’s best to stay in touch with old leads and customers. Who knows, some of them may be looking to sell or buy property, or they might refer you to someone else.
Provide seasonal maintenance or caretaking services to your customers. In this way, you will be the first one to approach them when they look for buying and selling opportunities.
You can also host events such as local pet adoption events or sponsor game events for kids. These events not only assist in real estate lead generation but also establish your authority in the area.
Patrick Frank, Head of Sales in Biproxi, boosted his referral program with the giveaway strategy: “One unique idea is to leverage your Sphere of Influence (SOI) that states, for every referral you send me, I will enter your name into a raffle for a prize that could be anything from local events, cash, vacation giveaways, plane tickets, etc.
It’s essentially a personal referral program.
You could also extend this program to any of your previous clients. You’re bound to get some good leads and build a good reputation with your past clients.”
20. Use Niche Sites for Real Estate Lead Generation
According to the National Association of Realtors, 90% of home buyers use the internet for house hunting.
Multiple real estate listing sites send qualified buyer and seller leads to the agents. The best part—you can stay with your brokerage and continue getting more referrals from these sites.
Let’s look at some of the top real estate listing websites based on the traffic they get:
Best Real Estate Listing Websites According to Traffic [Statista]
Key Difference Between Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor
1. Zillow: It comes with a Home Valuation Tool called Zestimate. This tool allows Zillow to create a heavy database of buyer and seller leads.
You can create a free account on Zillow or become a Premier Agent and receive instant visibility through the brands like Zillow, Trulia, and StreetEasy.
As a Zillow Premier Agent, your profile will show at the top amongst other agents of the same ZIP code on the listings.
2. Trulia: Trulia has been acquired by Zillow, and if you become a Zillow premier agent, you will get leads from Zillow, Trulia, and StreetEasy.
On Trulia, buyers can see comparable sales, nearby schools, crime rates in the area, amenities, and transit, all on a map of the area you’re considering.
3. Redfin: Redfin operates as a brokerage. It works with several local listing sites to ensure the data is accurate and updated.
They also have real foreclosure listings, unlike the other guys.
As a partner agent, Redfin will send you leads for free and will take 30% of the commission only after a referral closes a transaction.
4. Realtor: Realtor.com is the official partner of the National Association of Realtors.
Their listing is directly connected with MLS, where the agents list their property for sale, and it carries approximately 97% of all MLS-listed properties.
Realtor.com shows recently sold properties in the area of interest that allows buyers to understand the prices in a particular locale.
It also allows the user to filter the search for particular features, such as golf course views or swimming pools.
21. Stay Active on Community Pages
One of the best ways of generating new leads is by creating community pages on your website and optimizing them for Google.
Community pages provide buyers and sellers with updated information and reviews about localities, their population, physical and social infrastructure, cost of living, major attractions, etc.
You can also address common FAQs here, thus building on your authority and improving your Google rankings.
Here’s related advice from Bill Gassett, a licensed real estate agent for over 35 years: “One of the significant keys to being successful will be making your community page exceptional and then working to make it visible through search engine optimization.
Many will see you as a market expert for the community in the process.”
22. Leverage LinkedIn for Leads
While trying to create catchy content for Facebook and Instagram, where content flow is already high, many agents seem to ignore the one platform actually designed for professional interaction.
Your relation-building tactic is bound to gain higher momentum on LinkedIn, whose unique algorithm helps bridge the gap between your content and interested clients much faster.
A recent HubSpot study found LinkedIn to be nearly 3 times more efficient in driving leads than Facebook and Twitter. So, always remember to include LinkedIn in your social media real estate lead generation ideas.
As Beverly Ruffner, a Real Estate Coach, rightly points out, “If you want to get better leads this year, then learning how to prospect on LinkedIn will help.
It puts you in front of professionals when and where they actually expect to talk business instead of where they go to relax.”
23. Host Informal Workshops to Attract Attention
Topics like “How to Sell Your House Faster” or “How to Find the Best Real Estate Agent” are of interest to all potential home buyers and sellers.
Hosting an informational workshop on such topics can be a great way to attract attention.
You can even offer free home evaluations to build relations and convert them into leads.
Morshed Alam, a licensed agent in Minnesota, has some tips to make your workshop successful: “Just be sure to always have answers ready; that way, you look prepared and experienced.
Bring along a ton of small gifts and business cards to hand out to the people who attend the workshop.
Or, schedule an online workshop and advertise it on social media to get a group of prospects tuning in.”
24. Network at Events Not Related to Real Estate
Events full of realtors like you hardly lead you to quality leads. Instead, try joining local events that are not real-estate related.
A book reading event, yoga workshop, community service groups, and concerts are some events that see lots of participation and can prove to be excellent networking grounds.
Eseosa Sosa, a marketing consultant and brand strategist, advises you to be careful while ‘selling’ your services at these events: “Instead, go to an event you’ll truly enjoy, engage in the flow of conversation, and when you get the ‘what do you do?’ question, give them an answer that truly makes your real estate services shine.”
25. Chase Divorce Leads
When the competition is tough, it helps to think outside the box. Why not target divorce leads—the people genuinely motivated to move and looking to buy or sell a property?
If you play your cards right, you can get several referrals in the future. It could be a consistent and profitable niche with low competition.
Here’s what Kelly Lise Murray, JD, Co-founder and CEO of Divorcethishouse.com, says on divorce leads: “If you’ve got reserves of patience and empathy, then working divorce leads might be the perfect lead generation strategy to close a few more deals this year.
There’s even a designation—RCS-D (Real Estate Collaboration Specialist – Divorce)—that you can get to show potential divorce clients that you know your stuff and mean business.”
26. Buy Exclusive Leads
If you have enough of a budget, buying unique leads is one of the easiest commercial real estate lead generation ideas.
Some companies allow you to be an exclusive lead buyer, eliminating competition and increasing your chance of landing clients.
Susan Issac, an established agent in Connecticut, explains the process in quite simple terms: “Market Leader owns one of the largest and best home valuation sites online.
Homeowners use the site to check the value of properties they’re interested in selling. Market Leader then sends those exclusive leads out to agents who claim their ZIP code.”
27. Use Predictive Technology to Your Advantage
You can find several predictive analytic tools these days that will help you reach potential clients. They analyze data from multiple listing services and other websites to predict owners likely to sell their homes shortly.
These valuable insights will narrow your target, saving you time and effort.
Angel Piontek, a licensed agent for over 19 years, says, “Use predictive analytic tools to determine an owner’s propensity to sell based on key factors like equity and ownership time.”
28. Pitch Your Listings to Local News Outlets
Pitching your listing to a reputed newspaper is one of the best ways to get several quick leads.
For realtors in tourist destinations, magazine marketing can be pretty effective too. It gives potential buyers an in-depth view of the homes and lifestyle in the area, helping them envision their life there.
Christian Petterson, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at iSella.com, shares his experience with news outlet pitching.
“One of my listings was featured in a New York Times article last week, and I have been receiving at least five calls a day since publication—I had three showings just today.
It’s amazing to see the response you get when backed by a reputable publication.”
29. Update Old Listing with High-Quality Drone Photography
If you have a long-standing listing, update it with new pictures. Outdated pictures from the previous season may lead the buyers to believe the property is not in demand.
You can take it a notch higher by providing a 360-degree ariel view of the property.
Trey Langford (a licensed agent for over 17 years) and his team created a database of 360-degree aerial neighborhood tours with a pin linking to a home search. The unique service shot up their search rankings, attracting several out-of-state buyers.
Trey believes that the practice establishes credibility and professionalism that can lead to high-quality leads.
30. Reward Your Referrals
Even when your past clients loved your service, referring may not come to their minds. Motivate them with a system of rewarding referrals. It will help you maintain a steady stream of referrals in your mail.
Nearly 50% of customers are likely to refer you to their family and friends if offered a direct referral incentive. You can apply the same for good reviews as well, as excellent reviews bolster your brand image like none other.
Heidi Sutter, a Coldwell Banker agent, reveals that rewarding her referrals has been one of the best lead-generating tools for her.
“Doing so has been key for my business and proven to be one of the best ways to connect with clients, friends, and family who are kind enough to refer my services.”
Conclusion
We hope you found our real estate lead generation tips helpful!
Real estate lead generation requires a combination of patience, persistence, and a lot of hard work.
In order to stay ahead of the curve, real estate professionals must become more tech-savvy and work on improving their marketing and social media presence for lead generation.
The most effective real estate lead generation idea will vary from business to business. However, investing in good tools for your real estate lead-generation efforts always helps.
JustCall has been the choice of many real estate companies for their calling and texting functions. Connect with our experts to learn how our real estate clients are using JustCall for their lead-generation efforts.
