r/RealEstateTechnology • u/pupsandtucks • Sep 19 '26
Lead Gen Recommendations
I've been a solo agent for the last 5 years and haven't paid for any leads. Every lead I get is from my sphere or referrals. When I first started in real estate, I was on a team that provided realtor.com leads. It was helpful as a new agent, but the quality of leads weren't the best. I closed maybe a handful in the few years I received leads. The market has been tough and I'm considering paying for leads again. For those of you that pay for leads, what sources have you found to be worth the money? What other recommendations do you have for capturing more leads organically?
I do open houses, follow up, post listing on socials, the go-to when someone needs vendor recommendations, have gotten contacts through my local gym, etc. I don't have an email newsletter yet, but I'm considering doing one quarterly as a market update for those who want to stay in the know. I'm not comfortable being on camera so my socials are just for listings and market updates.
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u/FounderCody Sep 21 '26
Curious, how do you capture the leads at the open house?
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u/AnooshDoment Sep 21 '26
If you already get sphere/referral business, I would build the newsletter first and test paid leads in a capped batch instead of jumping into a big portal contract. Track more than cost per lead: source, budget/area, timing, what they rejected, and the next useful reason to reach out. I am working on Doment.ai around buyer preference memory, so my bias is that the lead source matters less if the context gets lost after two conversations.
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u/IvanVint Sep 21 '26
SEO optimized IDX website, but it can take years to get some leads.
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u/DifficultMovie155 Sep 21 '26
AgentsCard is good for those kind of things. Got my first lead after a couple of months
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u/Weird_Concentrate471 Sep 21 '26
Meta ads will be best option, but if we aren't comfortable running ads yourself use tools like streettext or listing2 leads to run your campaign without more headache
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u/HeRan4Me Sep 21 '26
Stay away from Revaluate.com. They are great at communicating when you're signing up for the service, but if you ever want to cancel, they go radio silent.
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u/CatPeopleBleaux Sep 23 '26
If you're really going to do them, I'd pay for Realtor.com, or Zillow. They have the highest quality, but are def the most expensive. DO NOT USE BOLDTRAIL LEADS 360. It's absolute garbage.
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u/CatPeopleBleaux Sep 23 '26
For those who don't know about the program, becoming a Dave Ramsey "Endorsed Local Provider" leads were the best I ever had. I live in Nashville so his name carries a bit more weight here, but I had a 9% closing rate. You have to hit certain benchmarks, the largest one is selling 40 homes in a year. If you are part of a team, it takes the total amount sold by the lead. It has been a few years since I was part of the program, but for about 10 yrs, it was amazing.
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u/cientiros Sep 24 '26
The salesy feeling goes away when every touch has a reason and a note behind it.
Build the database around three things...
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Capture at every contact. Open house sign-ins, gym contacts, vendor referrals, past clients. Put them all in one CRM with the source, and add a line about them (kids, dog, job, what they said they'd do next).
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Tier them. A = likely to buy, sell, or refer this year. B = warm. C = everyone else. Call the A's monthly, the B's quarterly, and the C's twice a year.
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Ask one question at each call. "How long are you planning to stay in the house?" The answer tells you who's moving. With rates where they are, plenty of owners are locked in and staying, and knowing that saves you from pitching them.
You don't need to sell anything on the call, just ask how they are and write down what they say. Referrals follow from that.
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u/Trevor_Miedema Sep 24 '26
Facebook ads, google ads, mailers, social media. Host events in your community for more outreach.
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u/osiel92jt Sep 24 '26
Meta Ads are my go-to. If you don’t know how to run your own ads, you can grab an ad template from Advertizip. There are several templates built for different use cases, including open houses, buyer leads, and listing leads, so you don’t have to start from scratch.
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u/tengtalker Sep 24 '26
Before you go and spend money on generating new leads (most of which will likely be cold anyways), I would strongly suggest you setup an email nurture campaign for the existing leads you have in your db already. You've got 5 years of leads that may finally be ready to convert, but you won't know that if they also don't know that you're alive and able to help them.
If you're doing a newsletter, I'd suggest doing a send 1-2 times per week. Talk about local events, restaurants, family activities, home maintenance (team up with an HVAC company for cross promotion). Don't go for the hard sell. You give them great community info, and you build your reputation with them. This will be a long game, but well worth it.
FWIW - I find meta ads to be mostly garbage, and that's from running marketing teams in real estate for several years. If you're going to run ads, Google Ads were always better as they had shown intent. CPL will be higher, but a good lead will save you money in many other ways.
If you're determined to run ads, make sure to check out the Facebook Ad Library and Google Ads Transparency Center to give you an idea of what your local competition is running
If you don't have an IDX on site, then that's also a good place to start.
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u/Know__Thyself 29d ago
Second, Meta and/or Google local ads + automation. If you're hesitant about setting up your first ad campaign, you can easily hire someone via Fiverr or Upwork to setup and run this for you
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u/Healthy-Glass-7722 20d ago
If you’re referring to buyer leads I’ve used Realtor.com and it’s worked great. Yes leads aren’t always quality but I’ve found it to be better than Zillow.
Now if you want seller leads I’ve worked with a company for the past 18 months that is great. The service is pricey but they deliver quality sellers that give a very warm handoff vs a traditional cold call. Got my first listing in month 2 and it made it totally worth it.
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u/prmptbroker 16d ago
Honest take: you don't really have a lead gen problem — you have a lead capture problem. After five years of paper sign-in sheets and hand-sorting free realtor.com leads, your best prospects are sitting in a pile of paper instead of somewhere that reminds you to actually call them back.
Before you spend a dollar on any lead source, swap the clipboard for a QR code at the open house and call people within five minutes. The fastest agent usually wins, not the one with the most leads.
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u/Altruistic-Classic72 Sep 21 '26
Meta ads + automations on top to handle low quality traffic. Results vary based on location but I’ve seen a ton of success for realtors doing this in SoCal