Looking to buy real estate leads? Well, you’re in luck because there are plenty of companies that want to sell them to you. However, it can be challenging to find the lead generation company with the right strategy for your business. Real estate isn’t a one-size-fits-all industry, and your paid lead generation plan shouldn’t be either. That’s why I’m not just recommending one top pick, but rather eight of our favorite places to buy real estate leads.
For this buyer’s guide, I used my experience as an agent, coach, and tech expert to review dozens of paid real estate lead generation companies. I analyzed them based on lead gen strategy, price, usability, scalability, and customer support. If you want to learn more about how I chose the lead providers on this list, check out our methodology section.
But if you’re ready to fill your customer funnel by buying real estate leads and using paid lead generation strategies, then we’ve got the right provider for you. Let’s dive in.
Contents
The 8 Best Sources for Buying Real Estate Leads in 2024
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Provider |
Best For |
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Market Leader |
Agents with a fixed budget looking for a guaranteed number of leads every month |
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Offrs |
Agents who want to try predictive analytics to get more listings |
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REDX |
Agents who want a budget-friendly option and are prepared to prospect |
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Zurple |
Digital marketing mavens who are looking for analytics and automated follow-up tools |
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Parkbench |
Natural storytellers and social butterflies |
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Zillow Premier Agent |
Agents primarily seeking top-of-funnel buyer leads |
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zBuyer |
Best for vetted & verified leads, with solid customer service |
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Catalyze AI |
Agents with a smaller marketing budget who want to try inheritance listings |
Of course, buying leads shouldn’t be your only strategy for business development. According to the National Association of Realtors 2023 Member Profile, 65% of agents reported that none of their business came from online leads. The reason why most Realtors don’t use online leads varies, but one to certainly keep in mind is the amount of follow up required to convert. In the same report, 68% of agents noted they do not use a customer relationship manager (CRM). A CRM is going to be key to following up with your leads and keeping your activity consistent to generate business. Real estate has a long sales cycle, and keeping in touch with clients and leads will definitely increase your conversion rate.
Looking for inspiration? Grab a copy of our lead generation plan template to help organize and prioritize your efforts so that you’re taking a strategic, focused, and profitable approach. Also visit our article, “39 Underrated Lead Generation Strategies for 2023,” for more ideas on how to fill your funnel with leads.
Best for Monthly Guaranteed Leads: Market Leader
Market Leader uses strategically placed ads on Google and social media to drive traffic to one of two places: either a home valuation page for listing leads or a personally branded, IDX search-enabled landing page for buyer leads. In order to use the tools on these pages, visitors are required to register for an account and input their contact information, which then gets passed directly to you.
If this strategy probably sounds familiar, it’s because a lot of competitors (such as Top Producer and Real Geeks) use the same approach. However, Market Leader has a crucial differentiator: guaranteed lead volume. If you make the payment, you’ll have at least the number of leads they projected for you—it’s just that simple. For agents with a fixed marketing budget looking for a straightforward way to buy guaranteed leads, this may be a great option.
For agents looking for even more leads, Market Leader also offers their “Network Boost,” a way for agents to receive around 40 leads each month for as little as $350 per month. They create and post custom ads on social media for you and deploy automated follow-up tools to start the nurture conversation.
Market Leader Pros & Cons
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Market Leader Cons |
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My Take on Buying Real Estate Leads From Market Leader
Market Leader has been around a long time and has a proven track record. It’s ideal for those who have done the math on their conversion rates and have a healthy budget. These agents know exactly how many leads they need on a monthly basis to ensure paid lead generation is profitable for them. Market Leader makes that possible with its guarantee. Also, the Social Boost add-on may get you even more leads without the need for personalized follow-up.
Best for Building Your Listing Client Base: Offrs
Using vast amounts of consumer, demographic, and market data, Offrs identifies the top 30% of your target market that is most likely to buy or sell a home in the next 18 months. They are so successful, in fact, that Offrs says they successfully predicted 72% of sellers in US last year.
Armed with this information, you can market to these likely clients, driving your conversion rates and the quality of your interactions through the roof. On top of the quality of their leads, they are the only predictive analytics company that guarantees a certain number of leads: 30 leads per month in your targeted ZIP code and 90 leads within five ZIP codes if you upgrade to the premium package.
These are all recent changes to the Offrs platform; they spent months listening to customer feedback, simplifying some offerings, and enhancing others. We’re excited about this new chapter for Offrs and are hopeful that it’s not too good to be true. Trust that we’ll be following along and updating this guide in the near future!
Offrs Pros & Cons
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Offrs Cons |
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My Take on Buying Real Estate Leads From Offrs
Offrs’ guarantees a specific number of highly qualified leads each month based on several data points that predict when a homeowner is ready to sell. Offrs has also partnered with ROOF, a referral network that contacts, qualifies, and converts your leads in the US. Plus you can get all of this without an annual contract.
Best for Prospecting Real Estate Agents: REDX
REDX is an outbound real estate lead marketing system that collects and disseminates data, such as property details, FSBO and expired listings data, and contact information for buyers and sellers in your community. They categorize and prioritize this data in VORTEX, their proprietary customer relationship manager (CRM), for agents to use in their outbound prospecting efforts. I also like their Power Dialer, which keeps your phone calling so that you can be up to four times as efficient with your cold calls.
The great thing about REDX is that it works well for budget-conscious agents ready to push up their sleeves and prospect via phone. In fact, this is the most cost-effective tool on this list. However, you need to be prepared to take control of your own lead volume.
REDX Pros & Cons
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REDX Cons |
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My Take on Buying Real Estate Leads From REDX
REDX is great for agents who are budget-conscious and not afraid to pick up the phone or knock on a door. Your performance and return on this platform are entirely determined by you and how hard you work. But if you’re willing to put the time in—especially with colder prospects—REDX might just be perfect for you.
Best for Digital Marketing & Automation: Zurple
Somewhat similar to Market Leader, Zurple generates real estate leads with community-specific buyer and seller landing pages designed to capture lead information. These landing pages offer something of value (a home valuation or an IDX search) in exchange for contact information. Zurple takes it a step further by advertising on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Google to drive traffic to these pages.
Zurple differs from others using this strategy because its analytics and automations are so strong. Zurple provides advanced behavior reports about visitors’ activity on your lead magnet pages. This might include lists of the properties they’re looking at and alerts for behavior that might indicate they are ready to make a purchase. Zurple also offers automated communication tools, such as email drip campaigns, to make sure your clients are hearing from you at the most effective moments.
If you’re a tech-savvy agent looking for analytics, Zurple could be perfect for you. Their integration with Facebook and Google Ads can be a boon if you have a strong online brand. Plus, the automatic follow-up tools in Zurple also make this an easy choice for agents who aren’t using their CRM to its highest potential.
Zurple Pros & Cons
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My Take on Buying Real Estate Leads From Zurple
Zurple is an excellent tool for anyone who wants more than just a name and contact information when they buy real estate leads. If you want to dig deep into what your leads’ behavior indicates about what they need, you should check out Zurple.
Best for Generating Word-of-Mouth Referrals: Parkbench
Parkbench is a real estate lead generation company that provides agents with a highly personalized community website. Using this custom website, Parkbench’s team of marketing experts coach agents to create valuable content with an emphasis on video.
Your site will feature the best and brightest of your local community. The neighbors and local business owners you profile on your Parkbench site will likely share your content, and your clients will visit to stay up to date on what’s happening in your market. These relationships in the community turn into excellent referral sources. So you’re not actually “buying” leads, but using Parkbench to build a referral network that can be a lead-generating machine.
With the emphasis on video and building your brand, Parkbench can work really well for agents who are already social butterflies. Take your natural storytelling ability and pair it with Parkbench to level up your community engagement and generate local referrals, which tend to be easier to convert!
Parkbench Pros & Cons
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My Take on Buying Real Estate Leads From Parkbench
Parkbench is a great choice for agents who are natural storytellers and have a well-developed (or quickly developing) brand reputation in their local community. If you’re closing less than 30% of your transactions as a result of referral and repeat business, Parkbench may be the perfect tool to increase your referral generation. Keep in mind that you’ll need a solid follow-up strategy in place to make this work.
Best for Buyer Leads: Zillow Premier Agent
Zillow places advertisements for participating “premier agents” next to listings on its platform. When a consumer selects you, they fill out a quick form with their contact information and Zillow sends you that information. Most of these leads are going to be buyers who are near the top of the funnel.
While Zillow likely gets the most homebuyer traffic on the internet, these placements aren’t always exclusive. Most of the time, premier agents appear along with other premier agents who are paying for the same ZIP codes. Potential leads generally select the agent with the best reviews, so making sure yours are glowing and numerous is crucial.
Zillow Premier can work well for agents who are available to follow up with leads quickly and continue to nurture their funnel. Because Zillow leads tend to be near the top of the marketing funnel, they will require some work to convert.
Note that Zillow Premier is a different program than the pay-at-closing Zillow Flex option.
Zillow Premier Agent Pros & Cons
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My Take on Buying Real Estate Leads From Zillow Premier Agent
I firmly believe that everyone should at least have a free account on Zillow—it’s a great place to collect reviews and start getting active leads. If you want to take it a step further and buy real estate leads, Zillow Premier Agent is a good choice, but it’s competitive. You’ll need to be quick and effective in following up with new contacts. Time is particularly of the essence because these leads aren’t exclusive.
Best Customer Service: zBuyer
A family-owned company, zBuyer maintains a strong commitment to customer satisfaction that some of the larger software companies just can’t match. Plus, it has an excellent track record of supplying valuable, verified leads.
zBuyer uses cutting-edge analytics to uncover early indications of interest in selling or buying. Targeted potential sellers are offered a chance to discover their home’s worth and potentially a cash offer on zBuyer’s website, HousingNow.com. The site acts as a listing service similar to Zillow, where buyers can browse listings. However, potential leads have to input their information to actually view the listings.
These leads must also confirm their interest at several points along the way, verifying their intent, which results in higher conversion rates. zBuyer then provides the agent with the lead’s contact information in real time to the zBuyer app, email, and to your CRM of choice. While the leads aren’t exclusive, zBuyer says they will only share a lead with six agents total, so if an area has that many agents already active, it will be sold out.
For agents looking for leads that have been vetted and verified, zBuyer could very well be your answer. Their offering is similar to others on this list, but they do put their leads through a vetting process before passing them off to agents. Their customer service is also top-notch, which is something to consider when spending hundreds of dollars on leads.
zBuyer Pros & Cons
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My Take on Buying Real Estate Leads From zBuyer
Frankly, it’s hard to come up with reasons not to give zBuyer a try if you’re looking to buy leads. It’s one of the more budget-conscious options that also sources its own verified buyer and seller leads. And if it’s not working out, you can cancel at any time. I’ll bet that if you employ some solid follow-up and lead nurturing, you’ll find zBuyer to be a powerful partner in the lead generation game.
Best for AI-driven Listing Leads: Catalyze AI
Catalyze AI is a new predictive selling software developed in 2021 to find inherited properties that are likely to sell. The company claims a 40% lead prediction rate. Put another way, they state that, “Roughly four out of 10 property leads sell within 12 months.”
The company says they use more than 400 million data points to make their predictions. Their model is a bit different from others on this list: They guarantee 30 inheritance listing leads in two package tiers. The pricing is transparent, starting at $360 per month. The higher-tiered plan is $450 per month, which provides listings valued over $1 million. There are no setup fees and their plans are flexible—your leads are delivered monthly and there is no contract.
If you have experience with probate leads and a fixed marketing budget, Catalyze AI may be the answer for you. It’s also a good choice for agents looking for a straightforward way to purchase leads with no contract or setup fees. However, keep in mind that inherited property sales can be different than a normal transaction. You may need more patience and advanced nurturing skills to convert these leads.
Catalyze AI Pros & Cons
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My Take on Buying Real Estate Leads From Catalyze AI
Overall, Catalyze AI is a fairly new software offering. They don’t have much in terms of reviews or blog posts. Another item to keep in mind is that inherited property leads can be niche. It can take patience and some strong follow-up with these types of leads. However, inherited property is a strong segment of the market that is continuing to grow as properties get passed down. Since there is no contract required, this might be a great opportunity to see if this niche is right for you.
Buying Real Estate Leads: FAQs
Rightfully, a lot of agents have questions they need answered before forking over their commission to buying real estate leads. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions we hear about paid lead generation services. If there’s something we haven’t covered, feel free to drop your question in the comment section below.
Is buying real estate leads worth it?
Yes! I always say, “There’s no such thing as a free lead.” You might pay with your time, your effort, your checkbook, or you can pay with a combination of all three. One way or another, you’re going to pay for the leads you get.
If this expenditure results in a net positive for your business—meaning you make more money than you spend—it is absolutely worth it. If you spend $500 a month on direct mail marketing and receive a $2,500 commission from it each month, you would absolutely say that the postcards were worth it. The same is true for paid lead generation tactics.
How should I choose a company to buy real estate leads from?
When looking at purchasing real estate leads, each agent is going to be different. Only you know your working style, your personality, and your business. Keep in mind that driving consistent results is the key. You might have to try out a couple different angles before you find a paid lead generation strategy that works best for you. One of our veteran contributors and coaches, Sean Moudry, has outlined a great lead generation selection formula you can use to tailor your approach—including a downloadable worksheet.
Does buying leads for real estate work?
Buying real estate leads can quickly get expensive. While it can be a great piece of the lead generation pie for some agents, these leads also tend to be harder to convert—remember that low conversion rate of roughly 1%? You’ll need a solid follow-up strategy. Many agents try buying leads and give up when they don’t see immediate results. These leads are going to require you to establish trust and authority with them and maintain consistent communication to see them convert.
How is buying real estate leads different from generating them?
Real estate leads that you’ve purchased are traditionally going to be higher up in the marketing funnel. You can also think of them as being in different buckets: Hot leads are those you’re sure are going to convert and are lower in the funnel. Warm leads are the ones you’ve been talking to for a few months that have expressed interest in the next year. Leads that you’ve purchased are usually cold.
More than likely, you’ll need to nurture these leads into converting. There’s a sweet spot in real estate where people are thinking about buying or selling, but haven’t yet talked to an agent. That’s where you come in! Once you’ve got your leads, check out our guide on lead nurturing and strategies.
Do most real estate agents pay for leads?
The majority of real estate businesses have some form of paid leads as a part of their marketing strategy. The most successful agents and teams actually scale up their lead buying once they identify a successful lead source. However, the very best agents see buying leads as only one part of their overall strategy.
Do brokerages ever buy real estate leads to give to agents?
Yes, there are brokerages that offer this. However, we encourage you to try putting together a plan to do it yourself before going all-in on someone else doing it for you. When you rely on your brokerage for leads, you end up sharing your opportunities with every other agent who is doing the same thing. Those leads are going to be much fewer than opportunities you can provide for yourself.
Also, make no mistake—you’re not getting those leads for free. Your brokerage is paying for them by charging you more in fees or a higher commission split.
When you pay for leads yourself, you get to do it on your own terms, and the long-term opportunity for success is much higher. Plus, if you leave your brokerage and still have clients that came from that company, it can get messy.
Our Methodology for Evaluating Companies That Sell Real Estate Leads
We pride ourselves in bringing readers the best content possible in the real estate space. Our team has decades of experience to bring you our analysis of the best products and services out there for real estate agents. The services for buying real estate leads in our list comprise a variety of strategies and budgets to accommodate our readers, as each agent’s business is different!
However, we recognize that the software and services listed above are not a comprehensive list. There are going to be great lead generation services out there that didn’t make the list, and new services are arriving on the horizon faster than ever. Our team strives to update our articles frequently.
Bringing It All Together
Not all lead providers are the same, so I hope this list helps you narrow down the best source for buying real estate leads generation lead source for your particular situation.
Buying leads isn’t the only strategy for success in real estate, but it is a crucial part of your business development strategy. Keep in mind that, at the end of the day, real estate is an outside sales career. The more people you talk to and real estate conversations you have, the more sales will come your way.
Have questions about these companies, ones we’ve missed, or advice for other agents looking to buy real estate leads? Drop a comment below, and let’s keep the conversation going!
Learn How To Get More Real Estate Leads, Get More Listings, Close More Sales, with Less Resistance AND still have a LIFE!
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YASSER KHAN
Author, Coach & Trainer
Yasser Khan earned less than $1,000 in his first year as a full time property agent. With no money for the $2 train fare to his Broker's office, he was forced to walk 25 kilometers on foot. Worse, he got evicted at midnight with his wife and baby son by the roadside. Desperate, he bought a $16 Sales book and took massive action. That single investment in himself gave him an OBSCENE ROI of $160,000 in just 11 months. Today, Yasser is on a mission to make the real estate great career again and helps ambitious agents quadruple their commission income within 90 days.
Yasser Khan is a real estate coach at YasserKhan.SG, trainer at PropertyAgentUniversity.com and the author of Property Agent Secrets Book who teaches Realtors how to make more Money, have more Time and enjoy more Freedom without all the B.S. plaguing the industry today.
Yasser Khan’s approach to coaching is highly personalised, holistic, no B.S., and for “PROS ONLY… amateurs not allowed.” He believes that true success means winning in every single area of your life (like Financial, Family, Social, Physical, Mental, Spiritual and Fun).
When Yasser isn’t coaching, he loves playing GOTY PC Games with top-of-the-line Razer products and being a kid again with his 3 naughty children (actually, boss babies...), traveling to and across scenic Pakistan, enjoying hot & spicy food, taking pictures of the Milky Way with his favourite Canon DSLR and reading up all about Dinosaurs (especially T. Rex)
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