Every top-producing listing agent we know agrees that there are only three things agents need to do to win every listing appointment: 1. Be prepared, 2. Be prepared, and 3. BE PREPARED. Everything else is window dressing. A listing appointment checklist is one way to keep you on track.

Of course, for newer listing agents who can’t brag about their past success, preparing for a listing appointment can be very stressful. That’s why we asked some of the most successful listing agents we know to tell us what they do to prepare for listing appointments.

They provided a ton of hard-won knowledge, but if you’re short on time, you can simply download the listing appointment checklist (plus scripts) as a PDF here:

Get Our Listing Appointment Checklist & Scripts

1. Write & Practice Delivering Empathy-driven Closing Lines (Scripts)

Pitching a homeowner is a bit like walking a tightrope over a canyon—it doesn’t matter how well you do in the middle if you lose your balance and fall a foot away from the other side. The closing line, when you ask for the listing, is where most new agents fall. If you want to get better at delivering closing lines, you need to focus on empathy: What are your homeowner’s goals and how can you help them realize those goals?

Nile Lundgren, licensed associate real estate broker at SERHANT and capstone consultant for the Sell It Like Serhant Pro Membership, tailors his closing lines to what is important for the homeowner:

“If you ask for the seller’s goals, you should already know what is important to them in the sale. Is it price? Time? Is it an agent who over communicates, or is it overall experience? Once you uncover what’s important to the seller, use that to close:

“What I hear you saying, Mrs. Seller, is that you want an agent to over-communicate due to past experiences with other realtors. As I mentioned, I have a weekly report that gives you a snapshot of the showings, feedback, listing analytics, and more. Why wait to sign with me, meet another agent, when my seller communications program is exactly what you’re looking for?”

Here are a few more closing lines you can use once you know the homeowner’s goals:

Price:

“After everything we’ve gone over today, are you confident that I am the best fit to sell your home quickly and for the best price?”

Honesty & Empathy:

“Thanks again for taking the time to allow me to talk to you tonight, _________. I am ready to go to work if you’ll have me.”

A Quick Sale:

“I think the best strategy would be to get the paperwork out of the way tonight so we can get your house up on the MLS by Friday. I would love to go over the listing agreement with you so we can make that happen.”

Marketing:

“Since you seemed to like the idea of virtual staging so much, I would love to have my photographer come by this weekend to take some pictures that we can virtually stage for you.”

or

“I am 100% sure that the marketing strategy I laid out for you tonight will sell your home quickly and for the most money. If you agree, can we take the next step and go over the listing agreement?”

Information:

“Have we gone over enough information today so that signing the listing agreement would be the next step?”

If you don’t already have a listing presentation ready to go, check out my step-by-step guide: This Buyer Presentation Converts Leads to Clients in 15 Minutes.

2. Learn How to Anticipate & Overcome Emotional Seller Objections (Scripts)

Even if they’re a hundred percent sold on hiring you and ready to sign, most homeowners will throw up at least some objections. They’re not doing this to intimidate you or poke holes in your pitch, and chances are they are not all that concerned with saving a few thousand dollars in commissions. Like anyone making an important decision, they just want to make sure they are doing their due diligence.

This is why it’s crucial to anticipate and prepare your objection handlers before you even think about sitting in their living room and asking them for the listing. Here are a few objection handlers to address the most common objections you will get on a listing appointment.

“Look, I get it, nobody wants to spend more than they have to, but there is a reason these agents discount their commissions and it will almost always mean walking away from the closing table with less money, not more. Think about it. These agents are advertising to the world that they don’t think their services are worth very much. While you might think that lack of confidence means more money in your pocket, remember that this agent will end negotiating with a buyer’s agent to decide how much money your home actually sells for. Are they going to fight for every penny that your home is worth? Why would they? They don’t even fight for every penny that their own services are worth!”

“Totally understandable. Frankly, I would be a little concerned if you didn’t talk to multiple agents! This is a big decision! Was there anything we went over today that you would like me to clarify right now while you have me here?”

“I understand you want to get more money for your house, but keep in mind that many agents have no problem being dishonest just to get a listing. They think that telling you what you want to hear will get them the listing and they can fix the over-pricing problem later. I can tell you from experience that this is a huge mistake, even in a seller’s market like we’re in now.

“I’ve seen it happen over and over again. Look at 12345 Main Street. It was priced at $795,000 and it sat on the market for more than five months before the price was cut to $725,000. Three months later it sold for $675,000. The asking price I came up with is based on actual market data going back five years from multiple highly reputable sources, not just my research. I am happy to go over my CMA with you again to explain how I arrived at this price.

“At the end of the day, I have a fiduciary duty to you and can price your home as high as you want to. But that same fiduciary duty means that I have to give you my honest opinion as a professional before doing so.”

While memorizing a few common objection handlers is a great way to perform better on your listing appointment, learning how to anticipate emotional objections is a skill that takes time to learn. See this excellent guide to learning how to do just that: How to Handle Objections from Prospects and Clients.

3. Make Sure Your Listing Presentation Looks Polished & Professional

No matter how you deliver your listing presentation at your listing appointment, it needs to look polished and professional. Even if your content is amazing, a poorly designed presentation will take the focus off what you’re saying, and put it on your lack of graphic design skills—a key component of digital marketing today.

Agent Crate offers different listing presentation templates, plus tips and tricks on creating one to help you impress your clients

Visit Agent Crate

4. Preview Every Nearby Listing You Can, Then Preview Some More

Luckily, the best way to prepare for your listing appointment is also the easiest: go out and preview every listing you can, then preview some more. This is one thing every top-producing listing agent we know works into their daily schedule. Previewing listings helps you get a sense of what’s really on the market competing with the listing you’re pitching, instead of what other listing agents show on your MLS. Let’s face it—many MLS listing pictures are about as accurate as a Tinder profile. Knowing what’s really out there will give you an edge.

If you make time to preview homes every day and take notes, in a few years you will even be able to comment on details of the comps you present in your CMA. So instead of saying, “Like your home, 1234 Main Street has three bedrooms and sold for $550,000,” you could say “1234 Main Street sold for $550,000, but when I toured it last year I noticed the bedrooms were very small. Your bedrooms are much larger, so this makes your home more attractive to buyers.” Which response do you think a homeowner is more likely to be impressed with?

[Related article: How to Make CMA Price Adjustments to Listings Without Pissing Off Sellers]

5. Practice Gratitude to Build Genuine Confidence

While it might seem a little woo-woo, one of the best ways to get over the pre-listing appointment jitters is to practice gratitude. You worked hard to get to this point, and someone has recognized your hard work and is considering you to help them with the largest transaction of their lives.

So instead of panicking, be thankful! If you find yourself getting stressed when preparing for your appointment, remind yourself how lucky you were to be able to get where you are today. On the day of your listing appointment, make sure to express that gratitude by thanking the homeowner right away.

Many new listing agents get so caught up in pitching homeowners they forget they’re actually dealing with a human being who let a stranger into their home. In order to break the ice, the very first words out of your mouth on your listing appointment should be “thank you.” If you focused on gratitude while preparing for the appointment, that thank you will be genuine and they will feel it.

You don’t have to gush—just say something like:

“Hi ________, how are you? I know there’s a lot of other agents out there, so before we get started I wanted to thank you for giving me the opportunity to meet with you today.”

6. Schedule Your Listing Appointment on a Busy Day

While this one might seem counterintuitive, scheduling your listing appointment on a day that you’re busy can actually help you perform better. Think about it. Which cold call do you perform better on? Your first cold call of the day or your last? If you’re like most agents, you’re going to do much better on that last call.

So instead of sitting around worrying and running over scripts the morning of your listing appointment, practice the night before, make sure your listing presentation is solid, and spend the day of your appointment doing what you do best—working with people who want to buy or sell real estate.

7. Create a Custom Listing Marketing Plan for the Home

Even though your listing marketing plan will probably not change much if you get the listing, you should still work to create a custom marketing plan for the homeowner. Every homeowner wants to believe that their home is unique enough to warrant customized marketing. Indulging that emotional need will help build rapport with the homeowner.

A great way to do this is to start with a multi-pronged listing marketing plan, then decide which marketing strategies you will use if you get the listing. Present this to the homeowner and explain why you are choosing some marketing strategies and not others.

[Related article: Ultimate 51-Point Real Estate Listing Marketing Plan (+PDF Checklist)]

Bonus Tip: Stick to Your Daily Wellness Routine on the Day of Your Appointment

One of the best ways to stay fresh and confident for your listing appointment is to stick to whatever wellness routine you normally do. If you normally work out in the morning and then meditate before breakfast, then this is exactly what you should do on the morning of your listing appointment.

The morning of your listing appointment is not the time to try a new meditation technique or do another mile on the treadmill. Instead, stick to whatever wellness routine is already working for you. This won’t eliminate the stress, but it will help trick your brain into thinking it’s just another day doing what you love.

Over to You

How do you prepare for listing appointments? Let us know in the comments.

Learn How To Get More Real Estate Leads, Get More Listings, Close More Sales, with Less Resistance AND still have a LIFE!

Get more exclusive real estate agent training here https://www.yasserkhan.sg/

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)

Let me be blunt. Most home buyers can be cheap. Not frugal, not careful with money. Cheap. They don’t just want a good deal—they want a great deal. They're a salesperson’s worst nightmare. If you’re a buyer’s agent, you’re probably already dealing with difficult homebuyers 20 times a day.

As a real estate agent in Singapore, I got to see just how frustrating it is to work with difficult people. Most homebuyers who showed up to my office came armed with well-intentioned but laughably inaccurate articles that promised them “Million Dollar Listing” apartments on “2 Broke Girls” budgets. I must have spent 30% of my time debunking real estate myths and patiently explaining how the real estate market really works.

That’s why I decided to put together this guide on how to educate your “unrealistic” buyers or renters quickly and easily. If you do it right, you just might get an evangelist for life.

1. Come Up With Memorable Talking Points & Repeat Them Often

Let’s face it, dealing with difficult homebuyers can be a grind. One way to manage their unrealistic expectations quickly and easily is to come up with a few short, memorable, and ideally emotion-packed talking points and repeat them as often as you can.

Think about when you first heard a talking point like, “Those who list, last,”—how easily you remembered it and how often you’ve repeated it. The reason a phrase like this has such an immediate and memorable impact on new agents has to do with a concept that neuroscientists call neural plasticity. It’s basically a fancy way of saying there are ideal conditions for learning and retaining a new idea. If you want to educate buyers quickly, then you need to come up with a few talking points that help create ideal conditions for neural plasticity.

Here’s how: According to Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, urgency and focus are what you need to help someone learn something new. So come up with talking points that create both. That means short, memorable, and emotion-laden talking points, delivered directly and candidly.

After an afternoon with me, my homebuyers probably heard me say this at least 10 times: “Your apartment can be affordable, nice, or in a great neighborhood. Pick two.” Was it cheesy? Yes. Did it help educate my clients quickly? Also yes.

Here’s a significantly less cheesy but equally effective talking point from Alexander Boriskin, an agent in Manhattan and The Hamptons who regularly sells eight-figure listings: “It’s certainly a buyers’ market, but fire sales are very far and few between.”

Here’s another from Manhattan agent Kemdi Anosike: “Compromise is a must. You don’t always get everything on your wish list, and that is OK.”

Here’s one from Jodie: “There is no perfect house. On a scale of one to 10, shoot for an eight.”
Just remember. Urgency + focus = learning. So take an hour or two and see if you can distill your market knowledge into a few short, memorable talking points that will teach difficult homebuyers a lesson quickly.

2. Use Your Lead Magnets to Educate Buyers Before They Call You

Some homebuyers you take on just don’t want to listen. They think because their hairdresser’s friend’s nephew got a two-bedroom in SoHo for under $1 million a month, they can too.

But no matter how off the mark their expectations are, you run the risk of turning them off with your perceived pessimism. And the reality is some buyers will shop around until they find an agent who tells them what they want to hear: “Of course there are 2-bedrooms in SoHo for under $1 million! Let’s meet up on Saturday and we can see some. By the way, how’s your credit?”

Instead of risking these starry-eyed buyers ditching you for someone who promises them rainbows and unicorns, why not generate realistic prospects with lead magnets that also educate them? Putting together a well-written and researched new homebuyer’s guide as a free download on your site will take you all of a weekend. You can even tailor it to specific neighborhoods and price points. Or better yet, target your specific niche to attract your ideal clients.

Then set up a landing page on your website and drive some traffic to it with pay-per-click ads on social media. The prospects you get from lead magnets like this will already have your advice in their heads before they call you.

If you already have a website, check out our guide to landing pages here. If not, you might want to check out Real Geeks. Real Geeks’ property search tool not only gives your leads a smooth search experience but feeds their info directly into your customer relationship manager (CRM) so you can track their interests easily.

3. Show Them, Don’t Tell Them

One of the biggest mistakes new agents make is waiting around the office all day for the “perfect lead” and dumping everyone else into crummy drip campaigns. Is your phone ringing off the hook? Are you so busy that you can’t be bothered to meet someone who might net you six figures or more in commissions over the next few years? Of course not.

Whenever you get a new lead, the first words out of your mouth should be something along the lines of, “What time on Sunday can we go see the listing?” This will not only help you build relationships with top-of-the-funnel leads, but will give you the perfect opportunity to educate them as well.

Come up with three to five listings that roughly fit the homebuyer’s criteria and budget, and one that’s exactly what they want but far out of their budget. Take them on a tour of the places in their budget, which they’re going to hate, then take them to the expensive place but don’t tell them the price until they get excited.

Remember: Urgency and focus are what you need to teach someone something new. It is much, much easier to create these conditions standing in a home and looking at the kitchen than it is in a marketing email.

4. Research Your Market & the Economy, Constantly

Of course, if you’re not spending enough time studying the market and the economy and how they work together, all the snappy talking points in the world won’t help you. Even unrealistic buyers can sniff out agents who are not well-informed. The minute they talk to someone who actually knows what they’re talking about, your buyers will ghost you. And for good reason. Why would anyone want to work with a professional who doesn’t know their trade?

Instead of trying to fake it till you make it, educate yourself. Constantly. There’s simply no excuse for not knowing your market and the local economy inside out. And if you want to work in a luxury market, chances are many of your leads will work in finance and know way more about the market and economy than you do. Why should they even bother talking to you? You’re not bringing anything to the table.

To stay up to date with your market, subscribe to local news sources that cover real estate—ideally sources that only cover real estate. Inman can be a great source of information for the market in general, and if you’re in a big city like New York or Chicago, The Real Deal and Crain’s should be in your inbox every morning. RISMedia is another great real estate news source.

Also, make sure you’re getting the latest data from your real estate association. Our very own Kate Evans breaks down the National Association of Realtors’ housing data every month and offers free infographics and talking points for both homebuyers and sellers.

Learning about the economy and how it affects your market is just as important. If you didn’t study economics or finance in college, don’t sweat it. MIT Open Courseware offers Ivy League-level lectures on economics online for free.

5. Use a Wish List to Prioritize Needs vs Wants

It’s just good practice to have your buyers create a wish list. Then, sit down with them and discuss the importance of each item on the list. Make your buyers sort these items into what is a want and what is a need. Having this conversation will help when you start looking at homes that are out of their price range. And you can refer back to this list over and over, redirecting them from their idealistic, starry-eyed dreams to the reality of their budget.

Obviously, what happens is that gourmet kitchen they said was a need will eventually become a want. The list will change over time to be more reflective of their current reality. And in these moments, you can remind them that if the house they settle on doesn’t have everything they want, they can save money, build equity, and trade up in a few years. And you’ll be more than happy to help them with that when the time comes.

6. Practice Patience

Honestly, I don’t know why we expect clients to understand what we spend every single day studying and practicing. It’s not their job to know the market or to understand how real estate works. That’s our job. So, first, practice patience with difficult homebuyers. Use all your active listening skills here. And never condescend. That’s the fastest way to lose a buyer.

Jodie typically likes to use visual aids when she talks to homebuyers. She uses a lot of infographics, especially in her buyer’s presentation. For example, she uses the one above to demonstrate the relationship between location, features, and price. Use visuals to get the point across and teach your buyers about the process of buying a home from beginning to post-closing.

7. Cover Finances First

Many buyers will come to you after looking at their dream homes online. Which means they haven’t talked to a mortgage broker yet. They’re coming to you with stars in their eyes and a dream in their hearts, but the loan originator can quickly pull them back to reality with a pre-approval letter. Encourage your buyers to get their finances straight first before you start showing them houses.

You can explain to them the last thing they want is to fall in love with a house they can’t afford. So, once they get that budget set, they’ll be forced to stay within it. You can also direct their attention to not only their approval amount, but how much they will pay per month on their mortgage. Just because they’re approved for a $500,000 mortgage does not mean they want to (or can) make that payment each month. Most often, buyers don’t take into account the other items (property tax, insurance, HOA fees, etc.) that will come along with that monthly payment.

8. Choose Your Allies Carefully

I’m sure we’ve all heard the advice from our elders, “Never pay the asking price for a house!” I don’t know where (or when) this little tidbit came from, but I still hear it from clients, usually right before they try to get me to write up a lowball offer on their dream home, thinking we’ll just negotiate the price. But honestly, even if it was true once upon a time, this is terrible advice for today. Your buyers need to know that they’re working from old data.

Now I’m not suggesting that you insult them by telling them they don’t know what they’re talking about. They may have gotten that information from their dad or a trusted friend. You have to be tactful when you explain that today’s market is far different from the market in which [insert family member who bought their house in 1984] purchased their home.

Your buyers have probably been inundated with “advice” from friends, family, coworkers, and colleagues on the “best practices” for buying real estate. But the truth is, practically everything outside of “find a good agent” is outdated, untrue, or misleading.

Take their comments in stride and let them know, in a loving way, that their friends and family don’t do this for a living and their advice is not accurate in today’s market. Encourage them to lean on one family member or friend they trust to seek counsel outside of yours, but tune out the rest of the advice noise.

9. Prepare Them for the Emotional Roller Coaster

One thing your buyers probably haven’t been told is how emotional buying a house is. With all the advice coming in, you might think someone would have mentioned the emotional roller coaster of buying a home, especially for first-time homebuyers.

The best way to address this is to first give your homebuyers a heads-up. Let them know that buying a home is emotional. Explain to them that their judgment will be clouded by their feelings.

Next, after you’ve told your buyers they will be tempted to buy based solely on their emotions, lay out your strategy to combat making irrational decisions. Go back to their wish list with their wants and needs lined out.

Sure, everyone wants to buy that gorgeous house with a pool in the backyard, but was a pool even on your list? It’s definitely not a priority. So, do you really feel comfortable tacking an extra $500 per month on your mortgage payment?

As the real estate agent, part of your job is to continue to ground your buyers and make sure they’re not sinking themselves. Bring them back to reality whenever you need to. They’re counting on you to do that for them. It’s your responsibility to remind them of the end goal, to help them cross the finish line. Don’t let them get into a situation where they will end up having to sell in two years because their payments are more than they can handle.

You may feel like the wet blanket, but it’s important for homebuyers to have someone looking out for their best interests. Dreaming is fun. But getting tied to a house you can’t afford is a nightmare.

10. Build a Solid Foundation

Shattering your clients’ homebuying dreams is a tough part of our jobs as agents. One way to make this challenge easier is to start with a solid foundation. When you build a trusting, compassionate relationship with your clients, you’ll have an easier time telling them those truths they may not want to hear.

Don’t start off dashing their hopes right away. Start by being that comforting, empathetic ear. Listen to their dreams and feel their excitement. Don’t make promises you can’t keep, but let them dream first. Then, gently bring them to a reality that will let them have a piece of that dream. Show them a path that will help them get as much of what they want as possible. Be a knowledgeable, creative problem-solver, sharing their enthusiasm for finding them the right home.

11. Learn How to Get to Carnegie Hall

If you’re a newer agent, then before you start effectively educating anyone, you’re going to have to learn the meaning behind that old joke about how to get to Carnegie Hall. If you don’t already know, it’s actually very easy: Practice.

The first few times you try to deal with difficult homebuyers, you’re either going to sound a bit unsure, you’re not going to have the right talking points, or you’re not going to be very well educated on your market or the economy.

Don’t sweat it, though. Even the best agents in the world started out right where you are right now. The big secret is that many of these agents aren’t even very talented or smart. In real estate, hard work and practice will beat out talent any day of the week.

You can start practicing dealing with difficult homebuyers right now by running scenarios with your fellow agents and practicing what to say in different situations. Study your market every day and know your stuff so you’re prepared for any questions thrown at you.

If you want to build the kind of strong relationships that lead to years of referral business, then never stop learning, come up with some talking points that create urgency and focus, and practice, practice, practice.

Over to You

Have a great talking point you use to educate difficult homebuyers? Add it to the comments below.

Learn How To Get More Real Estate Leads, Get More Listings, Close More Sales, with Less Resistance AND still have a LIFE!

Get more exclusive real estate agent training here https://www.yasserkhan.sg/

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)

Consistently generating real estate buyer leads is what sets successful agents apart. If you want to climb the real estate ladder, especially early in your career, you’ve got to deploy strategies that will create a steady stream of house-hunting clients. We’ve got 12 easy ways to help you keep your funnel full in busy and lean times. 

Why I’m the Right Person to Help You Find Real Estate Buyer Leads

As a veteran agent and real estate coach, I talk to agents every day who want to boost their buyer lead generation game. Also, I’ve been in your shoes, working hard to drum up business. Take it from me: Buyers are fun to work with, and drumming up buyer leads is easier than you might think. The good news is that you already have the tools you need to be successful—and you can start today!

1. Host Open Houses

Of course, you should always consider hosting an open house when you have a listing to market—it’s a tried-and-true way of promoting and selling a property. But it’s also the perfect opportunity to capture real estate buyer leads. Who comes to an open house (other than nosy neighbors)? Buyers!

Think of these events as opportunities to not only put your listing in the best light, but also your brand. Introduce yourself to every potential buyer, collect contact information, and always! always! always! follow! up! You’d be surprised at how often “just looking” becomes “ready to buy.”

Don’t have any listings at the moment? Offer to host open houses for fellow agents at your brokerage. You’ll be their hero for freeing up their weekend and you’ll be in the perfect place to capture valuable buyer leads.

2. Be the Community Expert

Want to connect with more local homebuyers? Become the community expert. Use your website and social media to showcase all of the goings-on in your community. I have a friend who sends out a monthly newsletter to all of her contacts with a list of local events, from high school football games to oyster roasts. It’s so comprehensive and thorough that the whole community relies on it and calls it “Debbie’s list.”

But, I’ll be honest: This is a time-consuming strategy that doesn’t bring in leads immediately. So if you want results faster, consider a community website from Parkbench. With a Parkbench website, you can become the source of information for all the exciting events in your area more quickly, and almost all of it is populated for you automatically.

Parkbench works best for community-focused agents who prefer to nurture relationships rather than purchase leads. Check the Parkbench website for availability in your market (they only allow one real estate agent per area). It’s a great way to build relationships with the most influential people in your community.

3. Convert Your Renter Clients Into Buyer Leads

Consider this: 44.1 million people rented last year and a majority of people lease or rent before they own, especially if they are new to town. Tapping into that massive base of potential buyers is an excellent strategy for sourcing real estate buyer leads.

Not only can you market to this demographic efficiently (via strategies like sending branded flyers to apartment communities), you can work with renters to establish a long-term relationship. If you’re an agent who demonstrates professionalism and trustworthiness during the renting process, you’ll be their first call when they’re ready to buy a home.

Want to learn more? Check out this video detailing our comprehensive strategy for targeting renters as future buyers.

4. Partner With a Company That Offers Exclusive Real Estate Buyer Leads

I’m often asked if buying leads is worth it. One of my favorite things to say to my real estate coaching clients is, “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 you are considering purchasing leads, take a look at Top Producer Social Connect. It’s like hiring your own team of experts to craft your social media ads to generate leads, which are automatically sent to your customer relationship manager (CRM).

5. Look for Any Excuse to Throw a Party

According to the National Association of Realtors, more than a third of all buyers used either an agent they knew or an agent who was referred by someone in their personal sphere last year.

While there are plenty of ways to stay top of mind with your sphere of influence (SOI), one of the single best ways to connect with your contacts—and meet friends of your contacts—is a party.

There are plenty of excuses to have parties for your sphere of influence—anything from a Kentucky Derby viewing party to a celebration at a brewery after some community service work. Think of all of the creative ways you can get your collection of contacts together. One of my favorites: Throw a housewarming party for your recent buyer clients!

6. Interact With Buyers on Social Media

So often, real estate agents look at social media like any other marketing outlet. Write your copy, post your pictures, buy ads, then sit back and wait for the buyer leads. So what does social media engagement actually mean?

Real estate buyers on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and even TikTok are looking for more than just static posts—they’re looking for interaction. That means you need to engage with the content that they post. Comment, like, share in your own story, reply to comments, and be part of the larger conversation.

This also means demonstrating your knowledge. If you’re the local real estate expert, share interesting facts, give a brief lesson on a timely topic, or answer questions online. I have a top-producing Realtor friend who is incredibly active on a Facebook group focused on local history. He’s a go-to source for local legends, and new buyer clients are constantly finding him right there on social media.

Find what you enjoy, and then join and participate in discussions. Is there a cooking group that posts interesting recipes? Share some of your own! Love dogs? Find the local pup hashtags and hangouts! It might be time consuming, but it’s a surefire way to boost your return on social media investment.

Too busy to spend your time on social media engagement? Consider Agent Crate, one of our favorite social media template providers for the real estate world. Our own industry marketing expert, Emile L’Eplattenier, called it out as the platform that offers the best value for money in terms of the competition.

7. Become a Zillow Premier Agent

Do you… Zillow? Well, your buyers do.

Just to put it in numbers, Zillow gets more than 93 million unique visitors per month, and the majority of them are buyers who are browsing real estate listings. So maybe it’s time to let Zillow work for you. The Zillow Premier Agent program not only puts you in the spotlight, it also offers other great perks, like featured placement in the Zillow Agent Finder and access to Zillow’s Live Connections program.

P.S.: Zillow has a program, Zillow Flex, in select markets. Rather than paying for their services upfront, you pay a percentage of your commission.

8. Try Demographic Farming

Instead of focusing on a certain neighborhood, as geographic farming does, focus on a specific demographic, such as seniors, first-time homebuyers, or members of the military. Of course, if you want to attract a certain type of real estate buyer, you’ve got to do more than just know their demographics. You need to know who these clients are as people.

Chevy Chase was onto something in “Caddyshack” when he said, “Be the ball.” Think like your target demographic. What questions or hesitations will these buyers have? What are their interests? What keeps them up at night? What problems do they have that you can solve?

The better you know your potential buyers, the better agent you will be for them.

Ready for some razor-sharp targeting in your farming efforts? SmartZip is an all-in-one listing and lead farming tool with a proprietary algorithm that aggregates data from more than 30 top data providers nationwide. This data includes property data, behavioral data, consumer data, and demographic data. Combined and fed into the SmartZip algorithm, it paints a picture of the candidates most likely to move in the coming months.

9. Serve Your Community & Become the Local Go-to Real Estate Agent

You became a real estate agent for many reasons, but I bet one of them is that you like helping people and your community. Giving back to an organization you care about helps you contribute and network.

Working with local schools, for example, is a great way to get yourself in front of prime-time homebuyers: families with children. Schools need sponsors and fundraising, and students need volunteers and mentors. This is a great way to both serve your community and get in front of people who are in that peak housebuying demographic. But don’t limit yourself. Consider communities of faith, sports leagues, nonprofits, and of course, animal rescue organizations.

There’s a hugely successful brokerage in my town that sponsors rec sports, which means every season there’s a bunch of adorable five-year-olds running around, playing soccer in jerseys with their brokerage’s branding. Some agents even volunteer to coach. Parents take note, and that’s their first call when they’re ready to buy a house with a backyard big enough for a soccer goal.

10. Use Old-fashioned Mail to Reach Entire Communities

Direct mail marketing is still an incredibly effective and efficient strategy for generating real estate buyer leads. But you need to be thoughtful about your design in order to stand out. Send out a calendar for the year, populated with holidays and local events, and I bet that postcard ends up on the refrigerator, keeping you top of mind for months to come.

If you’re looking for a direct mail option that is easy to use, has tons of design options, and won’t break the bank, check out ProspectsPLUS!. Choose from one of their 250 real estate-specific templates, input your personal information, and make sure the copy reflects your community. Now you’ve got yourself a real estate lead generating machine.

11. Make a Short Video

It’s no secret that video dominates internet content. Considering that the average attention span on the internet is measured in seconds, not that many people will read your 1,000-word blog post about why you’re the best buyer’s agent in your city. But many, many more of those people will watch you say the same thing on Instagram or TikTok.

And while it may feel overwhelming to break into video content marketing, know this: Google prominently features YouTube in search results, which gives real estate agents with good video content a chance to outrank behemoths like Zillow.

I have a good friend (and Realtor) who hosts helpful question-and-answer sessions every week. He shoots his videos when he’s in the car or on a walk so they’re casual and not high-tech. He is authoritative, provides thoughtful answers and insights, and has built a social media following in the tens of thousands. When buyers are ready to start looking for a home, this guy, who has been advising them through Instagram for months, is their first call.

Just remember that no matter what form your videos take, make sure they are authentically you and that they capture (and keep) your audience’s attention.

12. Get Real Estate Buyer Leads From Your Listings

Whether you’re looking to double-dip a transaction or want to shore up some goodwill with your sellers, finding potential buyers for properties you’ve put on the market makes your job as a listing agent much easier. And as the market shifts in 2023, this is only going to become more important.

Your first strategy should be to ensure the home’s visual marketing assets are top-notch. Get professional photos taken, make sure you’ve got great video content, and consider investing in virtual tour technology too.

Next, verify that your listing appears just how you want it to on popular third-party sites like Zillow and realtor.com. Though these sites pull their data straight from your MLS, you always want to double-check how they look. Finally, get proactive by placing ads on social media targeted to likely buyers in your community.

When your listing sells, you might even be perfectly positioned to help any buyers out there who didn’t get their offer accepted on your listing.

Over to You

Anyone can generate a few buyer leads, but if you want to be successful, you’re going to need a steady stream of leads every week. Keep in mind that your buyer clients will eventually turn into sellers too, so investing in your buyer lead funnel now creates opportunities for multiple transactions down the road.

Have any tried-and-true tips for generating buyer leads? Questions on how to best utilize these ideas? Leave us a comment below!

Learn How To Get More Real Estate Leads, Get More Listings, Close More Sales, with Less Resistance AND still have a LIFE!

Get more exclusive real estate agent training here https://www.yasserkhan.sg/

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)

In 2010, I left real estate to start real estate coaching. Because I went from homeless to a six figure income in just 11 months, I assumed helping other agents to make 6 figures would be easy. Yet four years later, my agents had the same incomes as the day we opened. Until we started recruiting. That made me realize that recruiting real estate agents would be essential to my agent clients' success, and we needed to be the best at it.

While I’ve since gone on to help many agents, the process was by no mean easy. The biggest lesson learned: You must have a strategic plan and know how to recruit real estate agents. This article covers my strategy for poaching producing agents from other agencies, as well as some retention strategies to help build on your recruitment success.

Why You Need a Plan for Recruiting Real Estate Agents

Over time, all teams and brokerages will lose agents. Attrition in this industry is inevitable. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reports that the median tenure of Realtors at a brokerage is just six years. But fewer agents in your brokerage means lower potential revenue, and reduced revenue means fewer services available to your remaining agents. Even if you only want to add two or three agents a year, you need a viable recruitment plan.

Recruiting the right way means building relationships. Creating trust and showing your recruiting prospects that you care ensures that you attract the right agents. It also increases your chances of retaining agents after you have invested a lot of time and money in onboarding and training them.

How to Identify the Ideal Agents to Recruit

Before you make a recruiting call or send an email, identify what type of agents you need in your organization and make a plan for how you will support them. Agents in different phases of their careers have different needs. Let’s look at strategies for both new agents and top producers separately.

Finding & Recruiting New (or Newer) Real Estate Agents

You can get in front of prospects who aren’t licensed yet early by placing ads on employment websites like ZipRecruiter, Indeed, Career Builder, and Craigslist. You can direct high-funnel candidates to your favorite real estate licensing school when they reach out. Keep in touch so they are sure to interview with you once they earn their license.

Find lower-funnel leads by contacting local real estate schools and asking them if you can introduce your team or brokerage to their classes. They will usually ask you to bring lunch or snacks for the students in exchange for a 15-minute presentation.

If you want to recruit brand-new agents, ZipRecruiter is the way to go. It’s the number one rated job search app on both Apple and Android devices, which means you’ll cast the widest net possible for new talent.

Visit ZipRecruiter

How to Support New Agents

If you plan to recruit brand-new agents or ones who have only sold a few homes in the past year, be prepared to spend a lot of time training them in marketing, buyer and seller presentations, managing a database, and writing and negotiating contracts.

If you choose to hire more than a few new agents at a time, you’ll need a designated mentor or trainer and a detailed educational program at your brokerage. Otherwise, their needs will impact your personal real estate production. In short, if you don’t have the resources to train new agents, don’t recruit them.

Finding & Recruiting Producing Real Estate Agents

If you’re recruiting top producing agents (typically, those who sell more than 30 homes a year), you need their contact information and an idea of their production levels. Assuming they’re active in your area, you can see what they’ve been up to by manually searching your multiple listing service (MLS). Most MLSs offer the ability to search closed transactions.

Begin with a search of recently sold homes in your target territory. Download the list and sort by the listing agent’s name, which shows how many closings each agent has had in your area. For example, in a sample search of 1,500 closed transactions, I identified more than 100 producing agents in my territory—great potential leads who sold two or more properties in the past six months.

You can also find producing agents in just a few clicks with recruiting software like BrokerMetrics. BrokerMetrics starts at $200 a month for the basic tools. In addition to agent production and contact information, BrokerMetrics can also provide market share and trend reports.

How to Support Producing Agents

Producing agents are the easiest agents to manage but also the easiest to overlook—which makes them susceptible to getting poached by other brokerages. You’ll need to provide them with a good website, an excellent customer relationship management (CRM) tool, lead generation support, and a sense of community.

Attracting, Recruiting & Retaining Top-producing Real Estate Agents

Opportunities

This one varies depending on the person. For top producers, opportunity could mean a leadership role, impressive title, learning something new, or accessing better training or mentors.

Recognition

Some top producers (like me!) thrive on the approval of others. And believe it or not, many companies aren’t good at giving credit or recognition. But, because top producers typically invest more time and money into their businesses than other agents, helping to grow your brokerage brand, I believe they deserve special treatment.

You don’t need to kiss their butts; they just need to feel appreciated. Create unique, exclusive experiences like inviting them to sporting events or on vacations. I once took my top agents to see Tony Robbins in Palm Springs. They still talk about this trip 17 years later.

Compensation

Many top producers negotiated their compensation plan long before becoming top producers. Think Steph Curry and his rookie NBA contract. Now they’re MVPs who are paying a large share of their commissions to their brokerage and are looking for a better deal.

So great! Poach top producers by creating an advantageous split just for them, right?  Wrong. Changing your compensation model to accommodate a top producer could lead to resentment among other agents on your team and divide your brokerage.

Instead, build your team or brokerage compensation plan to attract financially conscious top producers. If you already have an established compensation model, consider offering an upfront signing bonus.

Marketing Tools

If you want to keep your producing agents from jumping ship, investing in a top-shelf website can have an outstanding ROI. Trusted by Real Trends award-winning teams like the Oppenheim Group, Agent Image websites offer stunning design and state-of-the-art digital marketing services that can give boutique brokerage sites a run for their money. Click the button below to get 20% off.

The Best Scripts for Recruiting Real Estate Agents

If you only learn one thing about recruiting scripts from this article, it should be this: The best script is the true script. So get very clear about who you are and are not.

If you are a top-producing team that wants to build your brokerage brand, make that clear in your script. You might not appeal to a top producer who wants to grow their own personal brand, but you will attract mid-level agents who want to be part of something exciting and who aren’t concerned about being the top dog.

The key to recruiting success is not to get appointments with everyone with a real estate license. You want to find the right candidates to join your organization. Think of your scripts as a means of weeding out the agents who don’t fit your goals and culture. With this in mind, here are the most effective scripts I have used to recruit producing agents to my brokerages.

The Best ‘New Office in the Area’ Recruiting Script

Once you’ve gathered a list of recruiting leads using the MLS or BrokerMetrics, use this script when you reach out to them. The secret to success with this script is to start with curiosity in your voice.

Hello {agent name}. This is {your name} with {team or brokerage}. I see that you have recently sold {number} homes in the {specific location} area. Do you specialize in {that location}? Are you looking to do more business there?

If they say yes, shift your voice to excitement!

Great! The reason for my call today is that we recently opened a new office in {location}, and we are looking to invest in a few agents to help them grow their business. Would you like to have a conversation about that? Are you available at {time/day}?

Many recruiters would say that this script is too direct. But that’s just because companies often reward recruiters for the number of appointments they set and not the quality of the lead or conversation.

Another concern I hear with this script is with the word invest. Recruiters say things like, “I don’t have money to give them” or “We don’t buy agents.” But there’s no need to be so literal. You can devote your time to mentoring them, provide extra leads, or pay out financially. However you choose to invest is up to you.

After all, if you don’t plan on investing in agents in some way, you are going to have a hard time recruiting talented agents and retaining the ones you have.

The Most Effective Area Specialist Recruiting Script

Use this script with agents working in a specific community, neighborhood, or town. Begin by paying attention to their advertising on Facebook, newspapers, and listing signs. When you see an agent who is marketing a unique message or new listing, contact them with the following script.

Hello {agent name}. This is {your name} with {team or brokerage}. I saw your {listing ad or marketing campaign} and I was impressed by {the message, quality, or professionalism}.

Wait for a response.

I see you have a listing in {specific location}. Do you sell most of your homes in {specific location}? Are you interested in getting more listings in {specific location}?

Wait for a response.

We are also looking to grow in {specific location}, and we are looking to invest in a few agents to help them grow their business there. Would you like to have a conversation about that?

Wait for a response.

Are you available at {time and day}?

This is one of my favorite recruiting scripts because it works on Facebook Messenger, text, and even on Slydial, as long as you are honest and transparent.

Best Script for Social Media Intros

Sometimes the best way to connect with an agent is through Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. I recommend spending some time following the agent you’ve targeted for recruitment and like and comment on their posts. After you’ve become a familiar presence, send a direct message (DM).

DM After They Post Something Creative

Hey {agent name}. I saw your post on {social media platform}, and I was impressed. I love creative social media marketing ideas. I have some creative marketing ideas of my own that I would be happy to share with you. Would you be interested in meeting to discuss?

DM After They Post a Listing Ad

Hey {agent name}, I saw your ad for your {listing address} on {social media platform}. What a great listing! Do you sell most of your homes in {area}?Wait for a response. We are looking to invest in a few agents to help them grow their business in {area}. Would you be interested in meeting to discuss?

The Best Networking & Seminar Recruiting Scripts

Holding events and seminars is an outstanding way to attract learning-focused real estate pros. These agents are likely either newer to the business or mid-level agents looking for new ideas.

• Keep it small, and don’t hold it in your office. Agents will be intimidated to come into the lion’s den.
• It’s best practice if you present the information or host the panel, which positions you as the expert … everyone wants to know the expert.
• Trendy topics work best, like social media strategies (especially TikTok), paid Facebook Ads, business planning, and cryptocurrency.

Here is the script I use to get real estate agents to my events:

Hello {agent name}. This is {your name} with {team or brokerage}. The reason for my call is {vendor} and {team or brokerage} is holding an event for real estate agents called {event name}, where we will go into detail about how to {specific goal}. Are you interested in attending?

The event is on {date and time} at {location}. It is limited to {number} agents. Can I mark you down to hold your seat?

The secret to successfully recruiting at events is conversion. Think of your event like a lead magnet on your website. You need to offer something attendees want, but your end goal should be to convert them into recruitment leads.

The event is mainly for you to build trust through familiarity. The agent sees you at an event, then later sees you at an association meeting, and when you later call them to have coffee, they are more likely to listen to your recruitment pitch.

Try the Columbo Script

You may remember the TV detective series “Columbo,” where the main character would say, “Just one more thing…” before revealing the secret that solves the mystery. Add this to the script above to build anticipation.

I am hosting this event because I am looking to grow my brokerage in {location} and want to {result you want to achieve}. I am looking for agents who want to {result you want to achieve} as well.Just one more thing… If you want to be more effective with {the event topic}, then approach me afterward for a {script, template, or worksheet}. This will help you achieve {the result you want to achieve} faster.

The Best Script for Recruiting Top-producing Agents

A recruiter’s greatest challenge is signing top-producing agents because their usual techniques often don’t resonate. That’s because successful agents usually have their own processes and systems, a great personal brand, and tons of business.

Top producers are attracted to three things: opportunities, recognition, and compensation. As such, the secret to recruiting them is providing the special treatment they’ve earned. Be direct, clear, and concise. Either pick up the phone or walk into their office. An email or text doesn’t work for this script.

Hello {agent name}. This is {your name} with {team or brokerage}. You may not have heard of me, but I sure have heard of you. The reason I am calling you today is to invite you to an opportunity that is only available to a select few top-producing agents like yourself. Are you available {date and time}? Pause. They will probably ask what the opportunity is.

This is an exclusive opportunity, and due to privacy reasons, I can’t share with you specifically what it is. But I can tell you that it’s limited, it’s real estate-related, and it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Can you make it on {date and time}?

I am sure you are wondering what the opportunity is, right? That’s completely up to you to decide. Offer the opportunity to meet someone influential in the industry, get in on a new development, or join your organization on the ground floor before it reaches the next level. Whatever you decide, this script will help get them in the door.

Recruiting Real Estate Agents: How to Handle Common Objections

No ultimate guide to recruiting agents would be complete without addressing the common objections real estate agents present and how to counter them. Remember, you’re playing the long game. It’s important not to burn relationships by being too pushy. If you overuse objection handlers, you can come across as insensitive. The secret to responding to objections is to listen and be empathetic.

I’m too busy to move at this time.

Honestly, as a successful, busy agent, there is never a good time to make a move. The good news is we can help make the transition easier. The sooner you can make the move, the sooner we can implement your new plan.

I am loyal to my broker or office. I’m happy where I am.

I respect the fact that you are loyal. In fact, that is exactly why I am interested in working with you. But let’s be honest, if you were getting the support you needed, would you even be talking with me right now?

I don’t want to leave my colleagues.

If I could demonstrate that we are not only a good fit for you, but it would also be good for them, how would you feel about bringing them by to meet me?

I don’t want to deal with the hassle of changing companies.

I understand completely. Many busy agents who have already joined us had the same concern. That is why we help you with the process. Let’s go over our brokerage’s transition plan together.

I don’t know how I can support myself without the leads my broker gives me.

What percentage of your leads are coming from your company? What is your split on those leads? If I can show you how to generate more income without having to be handed leads, would you look at joining my team?

Your company costs more than I pay now.

To make more money, you must increase revenue, not simply cut your expenses. It doesn’t matter if your expenses are $0 if you’re not generating enough income. I will show you how to make enough money that the additional expense won’t matter.

I think I can sell more homes if I stick with a better-known company.

NAR statistics show that consumers choose an agent because of the company only 5% of the time. So if we can show you how to increase your business by 20%, would you be OK with a lesser-known company?

Recruitment Lead Nurturing

Effective recruitment (done the right way) is about building trust through open and honest communication. This takes time. Recruitment leads need nurturing just like prospective clients. Make an effort to recognize your prospects and their hard work so that when you’re ready to make your pitch, you already have a warm relationship.

Here are some examples of professional ways to reach out. You can send these notes through social media, email, text, phone calls, or voicemail.

Congratulations on an Award

Hi {agent name}, I wanted to be one of the first to congratulate you on winning the {name of award}. It’s a real honor and recognition for your hard work and integrity. Our industry needs more {agents or brokers} like you.

After Meeting at an Open House

Hi {agent name}, just a quick note to let you know how much I enjoyed meeting you at your recent open house. I’m hopeful that one of our buyers will be a good fit for the property and will connect soon to schedule a showing. I look forward to working with you more in the future.

Congratulations on a New Listing

Hi {agent name}, I just wanted to send you a quick note of congratulations on your new listing at {address}. It’s well priced and professionally marketed. We’ll do our best to get one of our buyers on it quickly. Again, great job, and I hope we work together on this one.

Thanks After Cooperating Sale

Hi {agent name}, I’ve been hearing from {cooperating agent name} about how well the closing went on {property address}. I just wanted to thank you for your hard work, expertise, and professionalism. Please know that your exceptional dedication has not gone unnoticed, and we look forward to many more deals together.

Key Takeaways: Recruiting Real Estate Agents to Your Team or Brokerage

All teams and brokerages face attrition. Losing agents over time means you’ll need a plan for recruiting real estate agents to maintain market share. Ultimately, your success lies in your ability to clearly communicate the services your team or brokerage provides to the right type of agents.

Your script is the first step in narrowing the field of agents in your territory. A good script is direct and to the point. It attracts or repels, allowing you to quickly sort the real estate pros who are a good fit from the agents who are not.

Bringing It All Together

I hope this guide helps you become successful in recruiting agents to your team or brokerage. What are your secrets to recruiting real estate agents? Let us know in the comment section.

Learn How To Get More Real Estate Leads, Get More Listings, Close More Sales, with Less Resistance AND still have a LIFE!

Get more exclusive real estate agent training here https://www.yasserkhan.sg/

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)

If you’re a buyer’s agent still struggling to make the leap to listing agent, blaming the market is perfectly reasonable. We get it. It’s rough out there. But excuses won’t fill your CRM with leads. If you want to build a sustainable real estate career, you need to learn how to get listings no matter what the market is doing. The process is simple, but not easy: Target homeowners with a compelling offer, then convince them you can get them the best price in the shortest amount of time with the least amount of stress.

Luckily, I am here to help. I used my real estate sales and marketing experience to put together our best strategies to get listings in any market. Even better, many of our tips are 100% free so you won’t have to spend a fortune on ads to get leads. I also talked to friends at other brokerages to learn how they got their first listings, and included links to my deep-dive strategy guides, checklists, and scripts so you can get started today. However, bear in mind this list only helps you get started; it is impossible to scale to 7-figure commissions (more on that later).

Here are our best strategies to get listings this year and beyond:

1. Schedule Weekly Calls With Your Sphere

• Cost: Free
• Time to Generate a Listing: Weeks-months
• Agent Skill Level: New agents

Whether the ink is still wet on your license or you’ve been a Realtor for decades, there is one proven way to get listings that is easy, predictable, duplicatable, and efficient: weekly calls to your sphere of influence. This works especially well if you’re a newer agent, because the people in your sphere are the most likely to know,  like, and trust you enough with the biggest and most important financial transaction of their lives. It really is that simple.

Don’t worry, I’m not suggesting you give your Aunt Tina the hard sell over the phone at dinnertime. All you need to do is call people in your sphere and talk about your shared interests and connections. Then add one simple script at the end of your call:

“If you know anyone who might be interested in selling their home, I would love to walk them through how I can sell it faster and for a better price.”

2. Run Facebook & Display Network Ads Targeting Homeowners

• Cost: $20-$100 per lead
• Time to Generate a Listing: Days-weeks
• Agent Skill Level: New agents-experienced brokers

If you want to speed up the process and quickly find leads that might turn into listings, then spending the time, effort, and money to learn how to run effective Facebook and Google Display Network ads is your best bet. Yes, running and optimizing ads can be expensive and dominate a lot of your time, but the potential reward here is massive. Why? Well, the more ads you run, the more chances you have to optimize them and learn what works and what doesn’t. 

You might be surprised to learn that pretty much every single lead generation service that agents pay for uses the exact same strategies to generate seller leads online.

3. Learn How to Find Hidden Listing Inventory Other Agents Ignore

• Cost: Free
• Time to Generate a Listing: Weeks-months
• Agent Skill Level: Mid-level agents-experienced brokers

When inventory is low, smart listing agents get creative. Instead of just downloading REDX and calling the same 20 FSBOs that every other agent is calling, they dig a little deeper and look for new, creative ways to get listings. Believe me, there is hidden listing inventory out there. You just need to find it and learn how you can help the owners sell it.

4. ‘Skip the Line’ for Exclusive Seller Leads

• Cost: $189 per month plus $25+ per lead
• Time to Generate a Listing: Instantly
• Agent Skill Level: Mid-level agents-experienced brokers

If you don’t have time to implement your own strategy for getting yourself in front of homeowners, you might consider outsourcing your lead generation strategy. One easy way to do this is to buy exclusive seller leads and conversion training from Market Leader. One flat monthly rate gets you a guaranteed number of leads to work every month.

5. Learn How to Prospect FSBOs (the Right Way)

• Cost: Free
• Time to Generate a Listing: Weeks-months
• Agent Skill Level: Mid-level agents-experienced brokers

No matter what’s happening in the market, there will always be people who think they can get a better deal by listing their home without an agent. Even though a 30-second Google search or a chat with literally anyone even remotely familiar with real estate will tell them this isn’t true, people are stubborn. That makes FSBOs a great source for listings in any market—even in a recession.

6. Join a Team as a Junior Agent or Find a Mentor

• Cost: Free-25% of your commission
• Time to Generate a Listing: Weeks-months
• Agent Skill Level: New agents

Look, I get it. Becoming a “junior” agent working for someone else isn’t why you became a Realtor. Other new agents are out there building their personal brands and crushing it alone, so why should you work for someone else? Because you’ll learn more about getting seller clients in a month working under a successful listing agent than in six months of $5,000 coaching courses. You’ll also learn more than you can from this or any other article.

The difference? Hyperlocal market knowledge. The best listing agents know your area better than anyone. Perhaps more importantly, they are almost always extremely confident about what they know. Confidence closes deals.

If you’re not sold on joining a team, consider finding a mentor. That’s how Leilani Serrao-Baker, a California listing agent and team leader in the top 11% of Douglas Elliman agents nationwide, got her first listing. Here’s Leilana:

7. Knock Doors in Neighborhoods You Want Listings In

• Cost: Free
• Time to Generate a Listing: Instantly
• Agent Skill Level: New agents-experienced brokers

Whenever I even mention the phrase “door knocking” to new agents, their eyes light up with fear and they quickly change the subject. Others tell me they’ll do it, but when Sunday afternoon rolls around, they find excuses to stay hunched over their laptops, trying to figure out how to go viral on Instagram.

This is a huge mistake. Door knocking is one of the best ways to show homeowners you are confident and market-savvy enough to get them the best price for their home. So if you want to get listings, then you need to get over your fear of door knocking.

8. Focus on Your Mission, Vision & Values First

• Cost: Free
• Time to Generate a Listing: Weeks-months
• Agent Skill Level: New agents-experienced brokers

If you’re a regular Close reader, you’re probably sick of me saying this. But focusing on your mission, vision, and values (MVV) should be your first priority before even thinking about trying to get listings.

Even if you’ve done this work already, it might be time to revisit your MVV if you want more listings. Take a step back and really think through how you are uniquely positioned to help sellers before trying to become a listing agent. Matching with buyers is relatively easy—they just want someone they like to open doors and walk them through the transaction. Working with homeowners is much more complicated.

A homeowner’s choice of agent is driven more by what you offer and how it benefits them. But you can’t be everything to everyone. That’s why focusing on your own mission, vision, and values is a crucial first step to getting the right sellers to resonate with you and hire you.

9. Send Out Just Sold Postcards

• Cost: 50 cents-77 cents per postcard
• Time to Generate a Listing: Weeks-months
• Agent Skill Level: New agents-experienced brokers

They may not get you many likes on Instagram, but sending out good old-fashioned just sold postcards is a fantastic way to get or stay top of mind in your farm area. After all, they prove to homeowners that, unlike some agents, you actually get deals done.

While not every demographic responds well to postcards, there is one key demographic who does: senior citizens who have tons of equity in their homes. It gets better. National Association of Realtors statistics show that the average age of homesellers rose again in 2022 to an incredible 60 years old. That means the average person who is ready to sell their home is much more likely to respond to your postcards.

Tina Van Den Hurk, senior director of luxury sales at Douglas Elliman, got her first listing from a just sold postcard from a deal she worked as a buyer’s agent. If you want to try this strategy, just make sure to ask the listing agent for permission first, especially if you want to use pictures of the home.

10. Convert Open House Visitors (Yes, Really)

• Cost: Free
• Time to Generate a Listing: Weeks-months
• Agent Skill Level: New agents-mid-level agents

If there is one lead generation strategy agents love to hate, it’s open houses. Many listing agents don’t even bother with them, and even some brand-new agents think they’re a waste of time. But there is one group of people who adores open houses: nosy neighbors who own nearby homes.

OK, I know what you’re thinking. The odds of a neighbor who needs to sell her house tomorrow showing up to your open house are slim to none. But this strategy means you get to meet homeowners in the neighborhood with the perfect excuse to talk about real estate. And remember that many buyers need to sell their homes before they purchase a new one, so house hunters are a potential source of listings too.

Still not convinced open houses can be a fantastic way to get listings? Well, what if I told you that Los Angeles Realtor and star of CNBC’s “Listing Impossible” Yawar Charlie wishes he spent more time trying to find sellers at open houses?

11. Use Our Listing Appointment Checklist & Scripts to Seal the Deal

• Cost: Free
• Time to Generate a Listing: Days
• Agent Skill Level: New agents-experienced brokers

Even if you’re the LeBron James of generating seller leads, they’re not much use to you if you can’t close them and list the house. That’s why learning the art and science of running a listing presentation that can actually persuade them to hire you is essential.

Why These Methods Do Not Scale?

Here's a secret  other gurus won't tell you.

Hard work is risky. Hustling only works to a point.

Cold prospecting works, but only to a point.

After that point, such methods end up hurting your ability to grow and places your ability to remain profitable in danger. Chasing clients for business does in fact get you clients, but they’re rarely the really really good ones; the ones who will pay a premium because they chased you, rather than you chasing them. Posting to social media daily works, but not if you ever want to live a life outside of hustling for clients. Organic is risky, more riskier than you think. Much more than most are willing to admit.

Sure, you can use these to get started, but don't make the mistake of sticking with them. Run paid ads to scale to 7 figures and hire a team.

Over to You

How are you changing your prospecting and marketing strategies to get listings in 2023? Let us know in the comments.

Learn How To Get More Real Estate Leads, Get More Listings, Close More Sales, with Less Resistance AND still have a LIFE!

Get more exclusive real estate agent training here https://www.yasserkhan.sg/

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)

Real estate ads should do more than just make your phone ring. If you put in the time and effort to really connect with your local community, your ads can actually help build your personal brand to market you as the go-to real estate expert in your farm area. They are that powerful!

To help inspire you to create ads that make your phone ring and help build your brand, we put together this freshly updated list of 28 examples of clever real estate ads for 2024. You’ll also get our analysis of the ad’s lead magnet, copy, and design to prove making great ads isn’t as hard as you think. 

Real Estate Social Media Ad Examples

Advertising on Facebook and Instagram is still popular with agents for a very good reason. These platforms let them laser-target leads on the exact demographic they’re trying to reach. All you need is a great idea, a lead magnet, catchy copy, and clever creative, and you can start generating leads on Meta’s flagship platforms.

To get you started, here are some examples of highly effective Facebook real estate ads and our take on why they work so well.

1. Buyer Quiz Ad

2. Reasons to Buy a Home Video Ad

3. Home Valuation Ad

4. First-time Homebuyer Tips Video Ad

5. Simple Exclusive Listing Ad

6. Simple Exclusive Listing Ad: Example 2

7. Open House Ad

8. Open House Ad: Example 2

9. Buyer Lead Ad

10. Six Costly Mistakes Homesellers Make Ad

Outdoor Real Estate Ad examples

Believe it or not, the outdoors is more than just what you walk through from your car to your listing. In fact, many people have the free time to go on long walks with their dogs, jog, ride bikes, and all manner of activities unknown to busy real estate agents!

That makes the great outdoors a prime place to reach those pesky leads who aren’t down with the Instachat or Snapgram or whatever latest app is at the top of the App Store charts. Here are some of our favorite examples of outdoor real estate ads that pack a punch.

11. Sense of Home Scratch & Sniff Ads

12. Compass: Powering Your Home Search

13. Stribling Building Listing Signs

14. Halstead Outdoor Ads

15. Realtor.com Subway Ad

16. Realtor.com House Wrap Ad

17. StreetEasy Subway Ad: ‘You’re Dead to Me!’

Print Real Estate Ad Examples

The rumors of print advertising’s death have been wildly exaggerated. In fact, some real estate agents still swear by the persuasive qualities of ink and paper. Are they right? Well, judge for yourself.

Here are a few examples of killer print ads that we bet have a great return on investment—or at least help grow brands.

18. Douglas Elliman: Ask Elliman

19. National Association of Realtors (NAR): Most Valuable Square Inch

20. Lefferts Place Mews

21. Nourmand & Associates: New Hire Announcement

22. Compass: Door Hangers

23. First Mallorca: Taylor Made Houses

24. Sotheby’s International Realty

25. Corcoran’s ‘Live Who You Are’ Campaign

If we had to pick a single real estate brochure company to recommend, it would be ProspectsPLUS!. ProspectsPLUS! has marketing print collateral in just about every format and size, plus there is no membership fee. Some providers require a monthly subscription to access designs, but ProspectsPLUS! works well for one-off projects and ongoing campaigns.

Real Estate Brand Promotional Items

Your headshot, logo, and other branding can be used on promotional items as well as other forms of advertising. These give-aways remind leads and clients of your professionalism, skill, and dedication.

26. The Helpful Branded Fridge Magnet

27. Custom Mug of Your Mug

28. Brokerage Ready-to-Wear Line

Bringing It All Together

Have some impactful, effective real estate ads that you want to share? Have insights about trends leading into next year? Let us know in the comment section.

Learn How To Get More Real Estate Leads, Get More Listings, Close More Sales, with Less Resistance AND still have a LIFE!

Get more exclusive real estate agent training here https://www.yasserkhan.sg/

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)

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.

The 8 Best Sources for Buying Real Estate Leads in 2024

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 cost: $189 per month + $25 per lead (depending on market)
• Contract required? Six- or 12-month term

Market Leader Pros & Cons

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

• Offrs cost: Basic plan is $299 per month for 30 guaranteed leads; premium is $599 per month for 90 guaranteed leads
• Contract required? No

Offrs Pros & Cons

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 cost: Starts at $49.99 per month; expired, FSBO and location-based leads are priced at $59.99 per month; PLUS plans are about $60 more and include email addresses in addition to phone numbers. Power Dialer starts at an additional $59.99 per month.
• Contract required? No

REDX Pros & Cons

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

• Zurple cost: $299 per month + $799 setup fee
• Contract required? Yes, six to 12 months

Zurple Pros & Cons

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 cost: Between $3,500 and $6,500 per year, depending on the market you serve
• Contract required? 12 months

Parkbench Pros & Cons

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 Premier Agent cost: Market dependent; most agents spend between $300 and $1,000 per month
• Contract required? Yes, also varies by market, but usually six or 12 months

Zillow Premier Agent Pros & Cons

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

• zBuyer cost: zBuyer requires a set minimum spend of $400 per month. Buyer leads generally cost around $12 and seller leads can range between $13 and $17.
• Contract required? No contract required, which is a major benefit if you need flexibility in your leads.

zBuyer Pros & Cons

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 Cost: Each tier gets you 30 exclusive leads per month. The first tier is $450 per month, which is for properties valued over $1 million. The lower tier is $360 per month, which gets you leads on properties valued under $1 million.
• Contract required? No

Catalyze AI Pros & Cons

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.

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!

Get more exclusive real estate agent training here https://www.yasserkhan.sg/

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)

Real estate negotiation sounds easy on paper, but in practice even small mistakes can sink deals. You need to understand psychology, strategy, and a shifting market to get the best outcome for your clients. Not easy!

That’s why I decided to write this guide to real estate negotiation. In this guide, I asked industry luminary Ryan Serhant and top agents from Douglas Elliman to add in their best negotiation strategies for 2023. Since we know you’re busy, we only included actionable tips you can start using today.

Want to become a better negotiator? Grab a cup of coffee, turn off your phone, and check out these 23 effective real estate negotiation strategies from some of the best dealmakers in real estate:

Here’s an example of this methodology in action:

The house is on the market for $600,000, but your research, backed up by your broker’s opinion, tells you it’s overpriced. By your estimate, a fair price would be $500,000. But when you offer that amount, the seller says you are “not even close” and doesn’t counter. You think the seller is in denial about the slump in the housing market, which has affected prices in your town quite a bit.

Sellers are looking at the prices paid for their neighbors’ houses a few years ago, while buyers are looking at comparable transactions from the past few months to try to determine the fair price. You might consider creative deal structuring to break through the resulting impasse. Start by noting that the typical house purchase is a very tight deal: Once the seller commits to a particular buyer, the seller can’t (legally) sell the house to someone else, even if offered a substantially higher price.

In your circumstance, a loose deal structure might provide a way forward. Imagine you make a slightly higher offer (it is, after all, your client’s perfect house) of $525,000. Then give the seller 60 days to keep shopping the house. If a better offer comes in during that time, the seller has the right to walk away by paying you a breakup fee—say, $25,000 or less.

This real estate negotiation strategy creates value based on the different beliefs about the value of the house. In effect, you are saying this to the seller: “You think the house is worth $600,000, but I think you won’t get a better offer than my $525,000. I’m so confident in my belief that I’m willing to give you 60 days to prove me wrong. If you do find a better price, I’ll keep looking for the perfect house. If you don’t find a better deal, we’ll close in 60 days at my price.”

If you want to learn more, check out Chris’ interview with Tom Ferry below, or better yet, grab his book, “Never Split the Difference,” from his website.

Over to You

Have a great negotiation strategy we didn’t cover here? Let us know in the comments.

Learn How To Get More Real Estate Leads, Get More Listings, Close More Sales, with Less Resistance AND still have a LIFE!

Get more exclusive real estate agent training here https://www.yasserkhan.sg/

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)

Let’s face it, using your own DIY real estate photos in your listings is risky. Chances are you’re not a professional photographer, you don’t have amazing gear, and well—real estate photography is not as easy as it looks.

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably decided to learn how to take real estate photos the right way—yielding pro-level results that will impress agents and buyers on both your local MLS and on listing portals like Zillow or Property Guru. We curated this list of the best real estate photography tips from experts across our industry to help you level up your skills.

Real Estate Photography: Preparation & Planning

1. Schedule Adequate Time for Your Shoot

“The same goes for photo editing. Don’t scramble at the last minute to find a professional image editor, if that’s not in your skill set. And don’t rush this process. Plan ahead by pinpointing a skilled photo editor to polish your images on sites like Fiverr, where talented freelancers look for work.”

Visit Fiverr

2. Neutralize & Declutter Before You Start Shooting

3. Always Stage a Home, Even if It Means Simply Rearranging Current Furniture

[Related article: The Best Virtual Staging Software & Tips for 2023 (DIY & Pro)]

4. Ask the Homeowner to Keep Pets Out of the Home

5. Pay Attention to the Smallest Details

6. Shoot Your Virtual Tour on the Same Day as Your Listing Pictures

Visit Asteroom

7. Always Notify the Neighbors Before Drone or Exterior Photography Sessions

Real Estate Photography: Choosing the Best Equipment

8. Invest in a Wide-angle Lens

9. Keep It Steady With a Tripod

Real Estate Photography: Lighting, View Planes & Framing

10. Keep Your Verticals Straight (by Holding the Camera Level)

(Source: Adam Taylor, Interior Architecture Photographer in Hawaii)

(Source: Adam Taylor, Interior Architecture Photographer in Hawaii)

(Source: Adam Taylor, Interior Architecture Photographer in Hawaii)

Adam Taylor, Interior & Architecture Photographer in Hawaii

“If you decide not to hire a professional photographer, make sure your verticals are straight. If your camera isn’t level, the vertical lines like walls and cabinet edges will appear to be slanted and the entire room will start to look like a fun house. Sometimes you’ll have to raise the camera higher or hold it a bit lower to capture your intended subject, and that’s OK … just make sure to level out the camera instead of tilting it up or down. Most cameras (even smartphones) have an option to turn on grid lines that will help guide you.”

11. Get Your Lighting Right

12. Be Mindful of What’s in Your Line of Sight Through Windows

13. Never Fake Views Through Windows

14. Make Sure the Windows Are Clean

15. Open All Curtains & Blinds

Real Estate Photography: Marketing Your Listing

16. Include Images of the Lifestyle Your Listing Exemplifies

17. Avoid Using Stock Photos Provided by Developers

18. Ask the Homeowner if They Have Shots of the Home in Different Seasons

19. Sometimes Less Is More

20. Post Just the Right Number of Photos

21. Take Photos of Your Photos

Real Estate Photography: When to Hire a Pro

22. Hire a Pro to Edit Your Photos for Just $5

Visit Fiverr

23. Whenever Possible, Hire a Professional Listing Photographer

“In our digital, mobile world, professional photographs have the ability to stop the consumer from scrolling through listings. Beautiful images capture attention and get people to click through. Being able to get and keep the consumer’s attention is highly valuable in our instant-gratification world.”

24. Relax!

Over to You

What do you think: Is real estate photography something that amateur agents should try on their own? If so, what are some great real estate photography tips our experts missed?

Learn How To Get More Real Estate Leads, Get More Listings, Close More Sales, with Less Resistance AND still have a LIFE!

Get more exclusive real estate agent training here https://www.yasserkhan.sg/

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)

Getting Started: Identify Pain Points & Long-term Goals

Before you even think about hiring anyone, you need to figure out which tasks they can do that will actually help you move the ball forward. This is not always easy. Sometimes you might not even realize just how much time you’re wasting on mundane tasks that can easily be taken off your plate.

This is why taking an hour or two to really go through your day-to-day activity to find your pain points is crucial to the hiring process. You can start by actually logging your time for one week and then breaking it up into essential tasks that only you can do, and tasks that can be delegated to a savvy real estate virtual assistant (VA).

Here’s what that might look like:

Now that you know where all those hours disappear to, you can start to put together a job description and time commitment for a virtual assistant.

Of course, you have two goals here. First, to free up some of your time to focus on high-level tasks that have a big impact on your bottom line, and second but equally important, tasks you can assign to a VA that you can’t find time for today.

Next, put together a dream list of tasks that you have thought about doing but haven’t been able to find the time for. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Targeted engagement on social media to build followers
• Editing long YouTube videos into smaller videos and posting on YouTube
• Designing more attractive posts for social media
• Making custom infographics
• Asking listing agents or buyer agents for feedback
• Designing and sending holiday cards, birthday cards, and so on
• Researching more affordable vendors for marketing materials
• Designing more attractive listing presentations
• Designing more attractive buyer presentations
• Website maintenance
• Scheduling blog posts
• Keeping your calendar up to date
• Screen incoming emails and calls
• Finding social media accounts of leads
• Researching leads on social media
• Entering open house leads into a customer relationship management (CRM) tool
• Posting ads on Craigslist

Obviously, this list is just a starting point. I am sure you can come up with 50 more tasks that would fit into a “nice if I had the time” category. Now make a plan to delegate them to your real estate virtual assistant.

What Are Your Long-term Goals for Your Business?

Believe it or not, many agents genuinely don’t have an answer to this question. If you want your business to scale in a sustainable way, then you’ve got some thinking to do. Sure, you want to make more money, but what are your specific goals for your business six months from now, next year, or in five years?

If this question stopped you in your tracks (sorry!), take some time to read Sean’s article on deciding on your mission, vision, and values. The article is written for brokerages, but the strategies apply to agents, too.

RELATED ARTICLE How to Build a Real Estate Team in 2023 + 7 Mistakes to Avoid At All Costs

How Much Does Hiring a Real Estate Virtual Assistant Cost?

Unfortunately, this is kind of like asking “how much do real estate agents make?” The answer will vary wildly depending on where you hire from, what kind of skills you need, and how competitive the job market is.

Since that’s not much of an answer at all, here’s a quick rundown of how much you can expect to pay an administrative virtual assistant with a few years of experience in different countries:

Cost of Hiring a Real Estate Virtual Assistant by Region

As you can see, your money will go much, much farther in the Philippines and India. Having hired from both countries, I would go with the Philippines all day. English skills seem to be better in the Philippines.

That said, if you need a U.S.-based virtual assistant, you have to take the hiring process seriously. The competition for skilled assistants is fierce these days. That means skipping Craigslist and using an actual, professional job search site like ZipRecruiter. It’s the #1 rated job search app on iOS and Android, so it’s where millennials look for jobs these days.

Visit ZipRecruiter

How Much Does Using a Virtual Assistant Agency Site Cost?

Unfortunately, prices have gone up for these sites over the last few years. Today, for a one-month subscription, you’ll pay $69 per month for Onlinejobs.ph. However, this should be looked at as an investment, as the quality and affordability of candidates on this site is unmatched.

Agency sites like MyOutDesk generally don’t charge a monthly fee for access, but they do make a small profit on the salaries of the VAs they offer. That means you will likely pay 10% to 20% more for your VA every month, and that extra money does not go to the VA.

Hiring for One-off Tasks Isn’t Worth It

Since the hiring process for virtual assistants is very similar to the process of hiring any employee, it’s generally not worth the hassle for one-off tasks like data entry projects or designing banners. Instead, use Fiverr.

Where to Hire VAs: Stretching Your Dollar in the Philippines

Due to the relative strength of the U.S. dollar, your best bet for hiring affordable virtual assistants is the Philippines. The Philippines offers agents two massive advantages over hiring from the U.S. or other countries:

1. Affordability: The median salary in the Philippines is around $12,000 per year. This means that you can afford to hire someone who would be out of reach in the U.S. or other countries.
2. English skills and established outsourcing culture: Over 90% of Filipinos speak English as a second language, and outsourcing is very common there.

Virtual Assistant Agencies vs DIY Hiring

If you want to skip the hassle and hire a virtual assistant from the Philippines who already has real estate experience, you can use a service like MyOutDesk. This will make your life easier but will end up costing you more money than DIY hiring.

The Best DIY Hiring Website: Onlinejobs.ph

If you want to save some money and try DIY hiring, then I highly recommend using Onlinejobs.ph. This is one of the largest job boards for remote workers in the Philippines and will give you access to a massive talent pool. They even post a candidate’s IQ scores, DISC assessments, and other test results that can help you make a hiring decision.

Onlinejobs.ph is not free, though. You will need to pay $69 for a one-month account in order to hire workers. They do offer a money-back guarantee, so if you’re not happy with your results, you can get a full refund.

Ethical Concerns About Hiring From Developing Countries

If you’re having some ethical concerns about hiring from a developing country like the Philippines, then you’re not alone. YKC has hired assistants for WordPress, social media, and data analysis from the Philippines, and in the beginning, we also struggled with these concerns.

After some reflection, we decided that hiring from the around the world actually gave us a chance to benefit from new perspectives and hopefully provide a positive and workplace with a lot of growth potential. Don’t get me wrong—the Philippines and other developing countries have some unsavory political leaders. But you won’t be supporting them. You will be supporting the people you hire.

The Hiring Process

Since they offer the best bang for your buck, we will focus on using Onlinejobs.ph for the rest of this article. However, the same principles will apply if you decide to use other freelancing sites, like Upwork.

Posting Jobs vs Searching Resumes

There are two ways you can use Onlinejobs.ph to find virtual assistant candidates. You can search through resumes looking for great candidates, or post a job. Here’s a quick rundown of the pros and cons of each method:

Posting a job

Searching Resumes

Writing Your Job Description

Whether you decide to search resumes or post a job, you will need to write up a clear, and hopefully compelling job description. You can get started by writing up a bulleted list of the tasks you want your VA to do. Once you have that done, write up a quick, friendly, introduction to you and your company.

Deciding on a Salary

Before posting your job ad, search for keywords like “real estate” or “administrative assistant” or any specific skill you need, like “social media” or “photoshop.” While some VAs in the Philippines specialize in fields like graphic design or programming, most seem to be Jacks and Jills of all trades. If you take the time to find people with the skills you want, you’ll have a much better idea of what salary to offer.

IMPORTANT: If you absolutely need someone with specific skills, make sure you say they must have those skills to apply. If you don’t, you will get flooded with resumes!

Vetting Candidates

Unlike job sites in the U.S., job sites in the Philippines offer substantial information about each candidate. It is not unusual for candidates to pose IQ scores, DISC assessment scores, and ID verification.

IQ, DISC Assessment & ID Score

While making a hiring decision based on IQ is probably not a great idea, DISC assessments can be useful if you want to hire a customer-facing assistant.

Worker Skills

Next, check out their “Worker Skills” section, where candidates rank their skills in different software or tasks. I’ve found that most candidates on the site are very honest about their skill level.

Reviews

Some candidates also have reviews from other U.S. companies that have hired them. I would hire someone with solid reviews over someone with no reviews.

The Interview Process

Once you’ve selected a few candidates to interview, make sure you ask them two questions along with your normal interview questions:

1. How fast is your internet? (Internet speeds can vary wildly in the Philippines.)
2. Are you willing to work U.S. hours? (Many VAs choose to work nights to be available during U.S. hours, but some do not.)

Making the Offer

While you don’t have to, sending your new hire an official offer letter and onboarding document will help them feel like they made the right choice. Make sure to spell out salary, tasks, payment, and hours worked.

Onboarding & Training Your New Real Estate Virtual Assistant

Once you have a new hire ready to go, you should start your onboarding process by giving them a (paid) crash course in the real estate sales process. There are plenty of great videos online that explain the process in plain English.

You should also set clear expectations and key performance indicators (KPIs) to make sure those expectations are met. For example, if you have someone running your Instagram account, you might set the number of new followers or posts per day as KPIs.

Time Tracking

While freelancer sites like Upwork and Onlinejobs.ph offer time tracking services, you might want to consider using KPIs instead. Time tracking software sends the signal that you don’t trust them to work hard. Not exactly a great way to start a working relationship.

Settle on the number of hours they should work per week, then set ambitious but realistic KPIs and have weekly meetings to see how they’re doing.

Paying Your New Virtual Assistant

There are many ways to pay your virtual assistant, but PayPal or Wise (formerly TransferWise) are probably your best bet. Neither are free, but there are very few reliable free ways to send money halfway around the world. If you hire a skilled VA, they will likely tell you how they prefer to be paid.

Remember to Make Your VA Feel Like a Part of the Team

While many of the tasks you assign your new assistant might seem low priority, remember that this is a serious job for them. That said, you are responsible for setting the tone for your new hire, so make sure to offer some fun things to do instead of just grilling them about performance on every call. Ask about their family, send gifts during the holidays, and treat them like the important part of your team that they are.

If your VA is working U.S. hours, make sure they have a voice at weekly team meetings, and remember to include them in the fun stuff too. Being on-screen at 3:00 a.m. can be a little awkward, but making them feel like part of the team instead of a hired hand is a good trade-off.

Over to You

Have you ever hired a real estate virtual assistant? Let us know your tips and tricks in the comments.

Learn How To Get More Real Estate Leads, Get More Listings, Close More Sales, with Less Resistance AND still have a LIFE!

Get more exclusive real estate agent training here https://www.yasserkhan.sg/

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)