5 Best Real Estate Lead Generation Ideas (2023 and Beyond)

Generating real estate leads can be tough, especially if you are using the traditional methods like cold calling, flyer drops and relying on referrals. 

If you are looking for a way to get more leads, faster, then you need to check out these 5 real estate lead generation ideas! 

In fact, these are the only 5 real estate lead generation ideas you’ll likely ever need – forget the other 47 most real estate agents are using.

These 5 strategies will help you find more potential buyers and sellers, and help you close more deals. 

So what are you waiting for? Kick your real estate lead generation efforts and marketing game into gear and generate real estate leads today! 

What are the best real estate lead generation ideas anyway?

1. Create a blog 

2. Create a lead capture form on your website 

3. Send emails to past clients and contacts 

4. Invest in a good real estate CRM to manage your leads

5. Use social media to generate leads, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

Get the best real estate leads generator scripts

What is a lead in real estate?

In the real estate industry, a real estate lead is simply an individual, company or real estate investor that has expressed interest in buying or selling real estate. 

And because they have different needs (buying or selling), the unique real estate lead generation strategies you use to attract them as leads will be different. 

How to attract real estate buyers

The way to get buyer leads is to lead with what they want. And what they really want is to buy a new house. They have a very particular set of needs and wants, and a specific budget in mind when analysing a property that will fit their requirements.

A good way to attract buyers for properties is to advertise the property on the channels where buyers are most likely to hang out.

Real estate portals are a must because this is where most serious buyers will go first. Another channel is social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube (fed by the Google search algorithm).

While an open house is not a new strategy, your method of marketing your open houses could be applied to social media and even Google Ads.

How to attract real estate seller leads

Same as above, you as a successful real estate agent need to understand that property sellers are generally buyers first.

This means the vast majority of sellers will have started with the property searching process before deciding to sell (in order to free up capital so they can upgrade or purchase the new property).

Therefore, their wants are different. They want a professional who they can trust to get the job done of selling their home in the shortest space of time and with the least amount of hassle and cost.

This is why when you advertise your services to any potential seller, you need to position yourself as someone they can trust and who has the required knowledge and expertise to help them during a very stressful time in their lives. 

Where you advertise your services matters. 

A professional and lively social media profile is a must today, and if you truly want to step it up a notch, building your very own website and blog will go a long way in bringing you more credibility and allowing you to show up in Google Search and the coveted Google Map Pack for local search.

3 of the best real estate lead generation tools

1 How to create a blog

For a blog, you will need a few key things: a domain name you own (preferably your name), a website host (to store your website on the web), a content management system (A CMS like WordPress.org is best) and a developer to help you build it.

Also read: Rank Your Website on Page 1 in 2022: 6 Real Estate SEO Tips

Once your real estate website is set up, what should you blog about?

A few ideas to help you get started are:

• The state of the real estate market in your area
• The benefits of owning a home
• How to prepare your home for sale
• The process of buying or selling a home
• Tips for first-time homebuyers or sellers
• Ideas for living rooms, kitchens, gardening and everything in between

The key to writing a blog that shows up in Google Search is to properly structure your content using the right keywords, semantic keywords, formatting your blog in the right way and growing your authority by attracting links from other reputable websites to yours.

By providing helpful and informative content, and even free real estate advice you can build trust with potential clients and position yourself as an expert in your field.

2 How to create a lead capture form on your website

If your website and blog are there to attract traffic from Google search, your next mission should be to convert traffic to leads.

And this is why a lead capture form is so important. The key is to offer something of value to your website visitors in exchange for their email address and phone number.

In marketing we call this lead magnets. And when doing real estate lead generation, a suitable lead magnet goes a long way in capturing the personal information of your site visitors.

But what kind of lead magnet should you use? 

Well, it depends on what kind of house you’re selling. If it’s a luxury property, then you’ll want to offer something that speaks to that, like a free e-book on the top 10 things to look for when buying a luxury home. 

Or if you’re selling fixer-uppers, then you could offer a free guide on how to renovate on a budget. 

Other ideas could be a how-to guide on selling or buying real estate, an updated school term calendar for the local schools in the area, and a gig guide of what’s awesome to do in the neighbourhood. 

The important thing is to offer something that your target audience will find valuable, so take some time to think about who your ideal customer is and what they would be interested in. 

With the right lead magnet, you can bring in tons of new leads and turn them into potential customers.

3 Why a CRM is crucial to managing your leads

Gone are the days of being able to manage your database in a notebook, your email or even in an Excel spreadsheet.

When you’re just starting out these may be sufficient, but they lack one crucial thing you will find you need: the ability to dynamically update your database and communicate with them at scale using automation.

A CRM (or customer relationship management) software is designed to manage your leads and customers in one place. 

It’s an all-in-one solution that will save you time, money and aggravation by keeping everything organized in one neat and tidy package.

The best part is your CRM should be able to connect to your website and help you track visitor activity and conversions, as well as be responsible for hosting your lead capture forms and delivering your lead magnets via email.

While many people may argue that a real estate CRM is not technically a lead generation tool, there are CRMs that can help you revive a dormant database and reengage them with the services you offer.

It’s an essential piece of software for every real estate agent.

4 Why you should send emails to past clients and contacts

As mentioned above, if you’ve been in business for any length of time, you’ll have a list of past clients and contacts that you can reach out to. 

And even if you are brand new to the industry, you’ll have a list of past associates, friends and family members who should know that you are now a real estate agent.

Emailing your database is both a very cheap and highly effective way to get new business. 

When you email your past clients and contacts, you’re reminding them of who you are and what you do. You’re keeping your name in front of them so that when they need your product or service, they think of you first. 

And you’re building relationships that can lead to referrals and new business. So don’t just let your past clients and contacts languish on your list – send them an email today and watch your business grow.

We have a host of free resources and templates you can simply swipe, tweak and use here

5 How to use social media to generate leads

As mentioned above, social media is a treasure trove for real estate agents.

Networks like Facebook and Instagram are perfectly suited to real estate because they possess two very important things: a market that is slightly older and is more likely to own real estate or be financially strong enough to purchase property, and because both platforms are visual and make marketing property easier.

The key to social media is understanding its algorithms: both Facebook and Instagram are driven by retention and engagement.

This means if you can create content that keeps users on the platform for longer and content that elicits comments, reactions and shares, both social networks will reward you by exposing your content to more people.

We have a more in-depth blog on the 7 things you should be doing on social media as a real estate agent here.

Your real estate business depends on your ability of generating leads and filling your pipeline every day. 

But the methods you use could either take more time to help you achieve your goals, or run in the background of your life and be mostly automated so that you can focus on what is right in front of you.

A successful lead generation strategy should be something that feels natural to you and helps you get from where you are, to where you want to be – in the shortest space of time.