Getting Real Estate Leads for New Agents

You’ll find there’s more than one way to generate leads as a new real estate agent, and you don’t have to choose one method over another. In fact, many new and seasoned real estate agents build their businesses by having a few different lead generation strategies both online and offline.

However, the most common ways for new real estate agents to generate leads these days are:

• Developing paid or organic online lead generation campaigns
• Leveraging social media 
• Prospecting expired listings
• Cold calling
• Attending in-person networking events
• Sending physical mailers out to their communities

And of course, getting referrals from friends and family while they kick off their career.

Paid lead generation means taking advantage of direct online advertising. You can do this through paid Facebook, Instagram, Google, or LinkedIn ads to pay for leads. You can also pay for online leads through real estate websites like Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, and others.

The upside to paid advertising? If you do it correctly and have a big enough budget, you’ll be able to start generating leads fairly quickly.

If you’re running a paid lead generation campaign outside of paid real estate search portals, you’ll typically offer a free valuable resource called a “lead magnet” in exchange for your prospect’s email address. Lead magnets can be anything from a local real estate market report to a free home valuation tool.

Since you likely won’t close a client the minute they opt into your lead magnet, you’ll need to also invest in email marketing to nurture the leads you bring in to learn more about them and let them learn more about you and what you can offer.

You can choose to outsource this if it’s okay with your brokerage, or you can automate most of these emails so you can “set and forget” your nurture campaigns.

How to Use LinkedIn to Generate Real Estate Leads

LinkedIn is quickly becoming a great source of leads for real estate agents. LinkedIn users are typically employed or looking for even better work, which means they have a steady stream of income and may be in a good position to buy or sell their home.

Getting leads for new real estate agents on LinkedIn can work two ways: you can either pay for ads directly, or you can create valuable LinkedIn articles and connect with people organically (meaning, without paying to interact with them). If you choose the latter, it’s great to show up regularly on the platform with articles that speak directly to your dream prospects and clients. Articles offer a platform to answer “frequently asked questions” you get out in the field, or share local market reports and your professional opinions on them.

If you do go this route, remember that people are on LinkedIn (and any platform, for that matter) to share information and connect with people, and they don’t necessarily want to be “sold” anything. So, if you do decide to showcase what you can offer people with your services, make sure you tie it to valuable information and relate it back to their needs so you have a better chance of earning their trust.

How to Get Real Estate Leads on Facebook

Facebook lead generation campaigns for real estate agents are probably the most common paid advertising strategy. The reason is because Facebook’s ad targeting allows you to target prospects in certain states and even narrow your audience down to their age, education, and income.

Facebook lead generation campaigns can involve offering a free lead magnet in exchange for a prospect’s email address, or they can be as direct as sharing your listings and offering applications to learn more about those listings.

If you want to get creative, some real estate agents even offer resources like monthly webinars and Facebook groups to get prospects’ information so they can demonstrate their expertise up front, and continue to nurture those leads until they’re ready to buy, sell, or invest.

Is Social Media a Must To Be a Successful Realtor?

Whether you’re a realtor or a non-associated real estate agent, it’s smart to already have a polished website and an active social media presence before you start relying on paid ads.

Most likely, people will see your ads and head over to your social media accounts and website to learn more about you before they reach out and give you a call or opt in to whichever helpful free resource you may be offering in exchange for their email address.

Just remember that social media can take time to gain momentum and attract attention from your dream clients.

If you’re bootstrapped, there are still a few ways to generate real estate leads for free.

Again, this is where social media comes in handy. It may not get you overnight leads at first, but social media is a great way to attract leads without paying a dime. This is also true for blog content, video content, or even podcast content if you can see yourself excelling at any of those other “organic” content strategies.

It often takes a few months to get traction, but once you do, you’ll have a nice cushion of free leads coming in so you can start to work in paid lead generation to speed things up.

Other free methods of getting real estate leads for new agents?

Cold calling and prospecting expired listings.

The easiest way to start cold calling real estate leads is to look for your market’s expired listings and “For Sale By Owner” (FSBO) listings.

Why?

Because these folks aren’t technically “cold” leads. They’re already interested in selling their homes, and they’ve either tried to sell already without any success, or they’re trying to represent themselves in the home selling process.

That makes these two types of “cold” leads somewhat warmed up to the idea of selling their home since we know it’s already a goal they have in mind. With the right connection and pitch, they’ll see the value in using your services to help them achieve their sale.

The best way to approach expired listings, somewhat counterintuitively, is not to start the conversation asking if they’d like your help. It’s best to start your call with some empathy and acknowledge that they must be having a frustrating time getting their home sold, and follow up with some questions with the goal of meeting in person. Once you meet, you’ll be more likely to make a connection with them and nurture the relationship in a way that’s mutually beneficial.

Similarly, you’ll want to respect FSBO prospects’ decision to sell on their own, and approach those calls with curiosity rather than a hard pitch. Again, the goal is to establish a relationship and not “make the sale” right off the bat. In fact, this will help you stand out from other real estate agents who are surely calling with the same goal of winning their business.

Once you start going through these lists and calling them regularly, you’ll begin to build up a database you can contact periodically to keep those relationships relevant.

How Allied Real Estate School Can Help New Real Estate Agents Start Selling

If you need help generating leads, Allied Real Estate School's continuing education courses teach you how to grow your real estate knowledge so you can feel confident offering your expertise to attract the right leads.

For instance, Allied offers courses in Trust Fund Handling, Risk Management, and Sales Comparison Techniques so you can offer prospects useful information on your blog, social media, paid advertising, and in-person conversations.