As you know by now, the real estate industry is highly competitive, and it can take a lot of work to stand out from other agents.
As you’re starting out, there are plenty of ways to build your business with hard work, but in some cases, you may consider buying leads to give you a boost.
If you’re curious, “Should I buy leads as a realtor” the answer depends.
While buying leads may help acquire new clients, it's essential to consider the costs involved.
Incorporating bought leads into your marketing strategy can help you close more deals, which is worth paying money for. And leads are especially useful for new agents who still need to develop their networks. Being able to access potential clients through lead services can save time and be cost-effective as well.
While the price to buy leads vary, the average cost of lead services is usually no more than a couple hundred dollars per month. When you compare this to the average realtor commission, usually a few thousand dollars. It's easy to see how it can quickly cover the costs of a lead generation service.
While buying leads is relatively commonplace for agents, only some leads are the same.
To answer the question, “Should I buy leads as a realtor,” the first thing is to understand that there are different types of leads.
Some leads, like ones that are preapproved or looking to sell right now, are more valuable than others. Also, another consideration is whether the lead is shared or exclusive to just you.
If a real estate agent has realistic expectations when considering what lead service provides and matches their goals accordingly, then using such a service is likely worth it in the long run; it’ll pay off in closed deals and larger monthly commissions.
The Cost of Buying Real Estate Leads
The cost of buying real estate leads varies depending on several factors, including:
- The type of lead (buyer, seller, or both)
- The quality of the lead (cold, warm, hot)
- The lead generation company
- The market you’re operating in
- Are you sharing leads, or are they exclusive
- Who owns the lead, the agent, or the service
Generally, you can expect to pay anywhere from $10 to $100 per lead or a few hundred monthly for lead generation services.
How To Find Leads
Finding leads in real estate can be challenging, but one of the jobs is to find prospects that can become leads and clients. Although you may be asking, “Should I buy leads as a realtor,” the key is to figure out what type of leads you want and paying for leads or finding them organically is more in line with what you’re trying to accomplish.
One way to get leads is through buying leads from a lead generation service like Zillow or Realtor. These companies have all sorts of data and can boost your lead generation, but they can be costly.
Another option may be to ask people in your sphere to help with referrals. Word of mouth is often one of the best ways to generate new business and to build trust with people who don’t know you but do know and trust the people recommending you, which gives you a tremendous amount of credibility.
Referrals are an excellent way to drum up business because they are the most cost-friendly. You won’t need to pay costly fees to buy leads, especially when satisfied clients are happy to recommend you to people in their sphere.
Other lead-generation strategies may include:
- Buying them using PPC Ads
- Referrals
- Marketplace leads–Zillow, Realtor, Trulia
- Social media
- Organic leads such as community organizations, door knocking, or cold calling
Buy them–PPC Ads: Pay-per-click (PPC) leads are often seen as one of agents' most influential real estate marketing strategies.
It involves bidding on specific keyword phrases that have been identified as relevant to your business, then running ads based on those terms.
These search engine ads appear in top positions on the search results page and can be used to drive plenty of highly qualified leads to your website.
Regarding PPC lead generation in real estate, Google Adwords is the platform that most agents choose.
Referrals: Referral leads are a precious parcel of a successful real estate business and should be noticed.
Referring customers, or your sphere of influence, provide the highest quality leads in the market and can result in high return sales.
To generate a steady stream of referral leads, there are two criteria you must meet; ensuring that every customer has your utmost attention, providing them with exceptional service, and developing a follow-up strategy to stay connected with past clients and contacts.
Organic Leads: Organic real estate leads are an excellent way for agents to generate business passively without spending money on ads or other inorganic techniques.
This type of lead is generated by your efforts, such as content posted on your website or blog, emails sent out via your newsletter, and content shared on social media channels.
With organic leads, you don’t have the added expense of advertising fees, but you do still have to put in the effort of regularly creating and posting quality content.
Once you have started this process and see a consistent stream of new leads organically, you will notice that these leads typically have more trust and loyalty to your brand due to their having already interacted with you through some form of promotion originating from your platforms.
Social media leads: Paid social media leads can be a valuable asset to real estate agents when it comes to generating qualified leads.
Unlike Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads, where you are targeting specific search queries, with social media ads, you are often only able to use broad targeting parameters such as interests and demographic information.
This is why many real estate agents employ an additional tool like Ylopo, which allows them to customize lead retargeting and automatically send pre-qualified leads into their CRM.
Using this combination strategy helps ensure that the maximum number of potential qualified leads can be reached via social media while streamlining the filtering process of finding actual prospects to maximize ROI on ad campaigns.
When utilizing paid social media leads, it's important not to rely solely on social media and instead build a comprehensive plan for lead generation that involves multiple methods and strategies for reaching potential buyers at all stages of their home-buying journey.
Marketplace leads–Zillow, Realtor, Trulia: Real estate marketplaces such as Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com are some of the most famous names for online real estate searches.
As an agent, you may be tempted by their appeal and use them to tap into high-intent leads that can convert easier than organic searches from search engines. This can be an effective form of marketing, but there is also a downside.
The cost of paid leads via marketplace platforms can range drastically, with leads costing anywhere from $20 all the way to up to $80 per lead or even more.
Monthly payments on these portals may exceed $1,000, depending on what’s happening in your market and how you use the platforms.
The Benefits And Costs of Buying Real Estate Leads
While this method may tempt many realtors who want quick access to hot leads, it could potentially burn through money if managed incorrectly.
Therefore, proper research and tracking must be done to maximize ROI while advertising with marketplaces like Zillow and Trulia.
Pros
1. Saves time – Buying leads saves time that would otherwise be spent on prospecting. As a result, agents can focus on working with clients and closing deals instead of trying to generate leads.
2. More targeted – Many lead generation companies offer highly targeted leads based on specific criteria like location, income, or interest in buying/selling a home. This can result in higher conversion rates and a better return on investment.
3. More consistent – Buying leads can provide a steady stream of potential clients, even during slow periods in the market.
Cons
1. Expensive – Buying leads can be costly, with some companies charging hundreds or even thousands of dollars per lead. This can eat into an agent’s profits and make it difficult to justify the expense.
2. Lower quality – Not all leads are created equal. Some may not be serious about buying or selling a home, while others may have already worked with another agent. This can result in wasted time and money for the agent.
3. Not as personal – Buying leads means that agents don’t have the same emotional connection with potential clients. This can make it more challenging to build trust and rapport, which are crucial for successful real estate transactions.
Is Buying Real Estate Leads Worth It?
Ultimately, buying real estate leads comes down to a cost-benefit analysis.
As an agent, you’ll need to consider the potential return on investment, the cost of the leads, and the likelihood of converting them into clients.
It’s also essential to research lead generation companies thoroughly and choose one that offers high-quality, targeted leads at a reasonable price.
And finally, you’ll need to be prepared to follow up quickly and efficiently with leads to maximize their chances of converting them into clients.
Whether you choose to buy real estate ads or not is entirely up to you and will depend upon a variety of factors:
- Your budget
- Lead generation strategy
- Your closing rate
For example, if you’re new or have a limited marketing budget, buying leads may or may not benefit you and your business. If that’s the case, you may want to focus on more organic lead generation strategies to find your leads.
You can reach into your sphere of influence to help generate new leads and help provide your pipeline with prospects for current and future business. For example, one way I reach out to my sphere effectively is to send out 10 video texts daily to different people I have on my phone.
These video texts are simple. I use them to say hello and talk about something significant in their lives, making these short video texts personalized. I don’t talk about real estate. Instead, I reach out to them on a personal level.
What these video texts do is that they keep my name at the top of their minds so that when real estate comes up, my name is right on the tip of their tongues.
Buying real estate leads can be a great way to generate new business, but it's essential to understand the costs involved and ensure that it's a good fit for your business. However, with a bit of planning, buying leads can be a great way to grow your real estate business.
