Your first real estate client is a BIG deal. As a new real estate agent, your first client ignites your entire career and gives you the confidence to propel you forward. It is the motivator that tells you âyeah, I CAN do this.â The reason why your first real estate client is a big deal is because they are a precursor for what is to come in your career.
Most new agents have the same realization at the start of their career. They realize they donât know how or even where to start to get their first real estate client. If you have been an agent for several months and still have not gotten a client, donât panic. It is normal for most new real estate agents to go long periods of time at the start of their careers without a client. Thatâs why the first year is the hardest.
Getting clients is the key to succeeding as a real estate agent Without a steady stream of clients, it’s impossible to close deals and build your business. So how exactly do real estate agents go about attracting new clients?
There are many strategies and best practices that experienced agents use to get more clients In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the top techniques for generating real estate leads and converting them into long-term clients
Leverage Referrals
One of the most effective ways for real estate agents to get new clients is through referrals from past clients. A survey by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) found that 68% of homeowners found their agent through a referral from a friend, neighbor, or relative.
Getting referrals starts with providing an amazing experience for each of your clients. Overdeliver on your services, communicate frequently, and make the buying/selling process as smooth as possible. Satisfied clients are happy to recommend you to their friends and family.
You can encourage referrals by:
- Asking for testimonials and online reviews
- Handing out referral cards for clients to pass along
- Offering referral rewards or discounts
- Staying in touch with past clients via newsletters or drip campaigns
Referrals create a steady stream of leads since past clients already trust you. Make this a cornerstone of your lead generation strategy.
Network Locally
Networking within your local community is another effective way for real estate agents to meet potential clients.
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Attend chamber of commerce events and introduce yourself to business owners and executives. Offer your card and let them know you specialize in real estate.
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Get involved with local nonprofits and volunteer at fundraising or awareness events. This raises your local profile.
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Sponsor or host community events like school fundraisers or little league teams. Set up a booth with your headshots and brochures.
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Join local Facebook Groups related to real estate investing, home buying/selling, or neighborhoods. Engage regularly by answering questions and offering advice.
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Introduce yourself to vendors and professionals who interact with homeowners like mortgage brokers, contractors, stagers, inspectors, etc. Ask if they’re open to exchanging referrals.
The goal is to build relationships and get your name out there organically within the community. When someone needs an agent, you want to be the first person who comes to mind.
Focus on expired listings
Expired listings refer to homes that have been listed for sale but did not successfully sell during the original listing period.
These can become leads because the sellers still have a need to sell their home but their previous agent was not able to close a deal.
You can find expired listings on sites like Zillow and Redfin. Then reach out to the sellers via:
- Direct mail campaigns with stats on how you can sell their home
- Phone calls explaining why their home did not sell and how you would improve the process
- Door knocking to establish a personal connection and build trust
Around 20% of all home sales involve re-listed properties, so expired listings represent a major opportunity. Put in the effort to connect with these sellers and there’s a good chance you’ll convert them into clients.
Purchase Leads
Buying real estate leads from lead generation services can instantly provide you with targeted prospects. There are many reputable companies that specialize in generating real estate leads through ads, SEO, and outbound marketing.
Some popular lead sources include:
- Zillow
- Realtor.com
- RealtyJuggler
- Boomtown
- Keller Williams Command
- BoldLeads
You can expect to pay around $50-$100 per lead depending on its quality. Always research lead gen companies thoroughly and only buy from reputable providers.
The advantage of purchasing leads is you can quickly scale up your prospecting. It costs money but saves you time having to generate all your own leads.
Just be sure to follow up on leads quickly and persistently to improve conversion rates. Exclusive & expired leads in particular require immediate action before they go cold.
Host Open Houses
Hosting open houses is a classic agent strategy for meeting potential buyers. Open houses allow you to showcase listings to prospects drawn in by signage or digital ads.
To maximize interest:
-Boost the event on social media and invite local contacts
-Have brochures and business cards displayed prominently
-Capture lead info by using a signup sheet or lead capture app
-Follow up with all visitors who left their details
Even if visitors aren’t interested in that particular listing, they might be buying prospects for other properties. Get their contact info so you can stay top of mind.
According to NAR, open houses generate about 1 buyer lead for every 50 visitors. Make sure to leverage this cost-effective method.
Optimize Your Website
Your website acts as a 24/7 salesperson for generating leads. Make sure it’s fully optimized for converting visitors into prospects.
Essential tips for maximizing your site include:
- Highlight your listings front and center
- Share market updates, testimonials, and credentials to build trust
- Offer a free evaluation or market report in exchange for contact details
- Feature Calls-to-Action encouraging visitors to call or email you
- Publish blog content focused on buyer and seller pain points
- Integrate lead capture forms on high-traffic pages
This allows you to collect lead info directly from your site traffic rather than waiting for them to contact you.
Consider investing in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to improve visibility and traffic to your site. This expands your digital reach to capture more prospects online.
Advertise Your Services
Running advertisements is an direct way to get your services in front of local home buyers and sellers.
Effective options include:
- Google Ads targeting people searching for agents or real estate info
- Facebook Ads that can be highly targeted by demographics and interest
- Display ads on real estate sites like Zillow and Realtor
- Retargeting ads that follow site visitors around the web
- Direct mail postcards and brochures sent to specific neighborhoods
- Door hangers and flyers distributed locally
When creating ads:
- Highlight your specialties, experience, and expertise
- Use attractive images and branding
- Offer free resources like market guides or home valuations
- Run limited-time promotions like free staging or photography
Track your results to optimize your ads and maximize conversions over time. This is an investment that attracts new leads at scale.
Leverage Social Media
In today’s digital era, having an active presence on social media is a must. Use platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and TikTok to connect with prospects.
Strategies for generating leads on social include:
- Post photos and videos showcasing your listings.
- Share market updates, real estate tips, local news, and more.
- Promote your open houses, events, and latest sales.
- Respond to comments and questions to establish expertise.
- Run ads targeted locally by interests and demographics.
- Collaborate with vendors by getting featured or sponsoring giveaways.
The goal is to build an engaged audience and be helpful so prospects reach out to you when needed.
Hold Events
Hosting events allows you to connect directly with prospects in your area. They also build your brand and reputation.
Successful real estate events to consider include:
- First-time home buyer seminars
- Real estate investing workshops
- Neighborhood open houses
- Client appreciation mixers
- Ask the expert luncheons
- Home selling seminars
Promote events across your website, email lists, and social channels. Follow up with all attendees after the event to convert them into prospects.
Events establish you as an authority in real estate and give prospects direct access to you. Make them a consistent part of your marketing calendar.
In summary
Building a steady pipeline of leads is essential for every real estate agent. The most successful agents use a mix of referral generation, networking, lead buying, digital marketing, advertising, and event marketing.
By consistently implementing a variety of lead generation strategies, you can keep the leads flowing in and build a thriving real estate practice.
The key is tracking the results of each tactic so you know what provides the highest return on investment. Double down on what works best for your target market.
With a disciplined approach, you can go from wondering “How do real estate agents get clients?” to having more leads than you know what to do with.
#3 Sphere of Influence
Your sphere of influence is another fundamental method of finding your first real estate client. Most agents recognize this term because your sphere of influence has a high success rate. So, what is the sphere of influence and how does it work?
The sphere of influence is your immediate network of people when you enter your new real estate career. You might think âI donât have a networkâIâm new!â This is a common fallacy. Everyone has a sphere of influence, but not everyone knows what it looks like.
Your sphere of influence consists of family members, friends, people in your volunteer group, people who you are acquaintances with, etc. Every person you know can be in your sphere of influence. Therefore, you already have an advantage to work with them when they need a real estate professionalâs opinion or help.
When someone in your sphere of influence needs help selling their home or they are looking to buy a new home, you have a warm connection to them. This connection increases their likelihood of hiring you.
Here is an example of using your sphere of influence. You contact acquaintances, friends, and family members to tell them that you are a real estate agent working at the local brokerage. When an acquaintance hears your career update, they inform you that they want to sell their house and buy a new one. You offer your services and they sign with you.
This is just one example of how the sphere of influence can work in your favor. You never know what people in your sphere of influence need until you put yourself out there. When you do, you may find that some people in your sphere are interested in listing or buying a home.
In an interview with Richard Schulman, Keller Williams Santa Monica real estate agent and top producing KW agent in the country, he explained âas humans, itâs our natural instinct to work with someone we trust.â He continued to explain, top producing agents will always lose business to their clientâs friend, no matter their qualifications. The people in your network will have more trust with you than someone they donât know. Therefore, you can use this advantage to bridge a connection with them.
Thatâs what makes the sphere of influence such a powerful way to prospect for new leads.
Creating a digital presence helps agents find their first real estate client passively. A digital presence creates familiarity and a sense of connection through content distributed on social media. Such social media channels include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and their own personal website.
Some agents discredit the importance of having a strong digital presence. They think a better investment of your time is to interfacing with leads face-to-face. Interfacing examples include door knocking or cold calling. Interfacing with leads is always effective. However, they overlook the power of social media ads and creating a digital connection.
Using social media advertising is a smart way to advertise to home buyers and home sellers. This is the digital equivalent of seeing an ad of a local real estate agentâs service in the newspaper. A social media ad can target leads based on qualifiers (age, geography, interest, etc.) to help you find the perfect client.
Letâs analyze what this looks like with Facebook. Facebook is a commonly used social media platform by people of all ages. When someone in your targeted geographic location scrolls through their social feed, they will see a promoted ad of your services.
Informing the user that you can help them sell their home or find a new home to purchase. Coincidentally this has been on their mind. Because of their need, they can click on the ad and have their contact information forwarded to you. This creates a warm lead that you can contact in the future.
Therein lies the power of social media advertising that people overlook. Taking time to focus on developing a strong funnel system for warm leads increases your lead to client conversion rate.
A digital presence is a creative approach to booking more clientele. The result of creating a digital presence is brand recognition and credibility in your sector. At the core of creating a digital presence, real estate agents are simply building a personal connection with their sphere of influence.
You can maintain your sphere of influence by interacting with people on social media. The simple idea behind this is an earnest one. Social media makes communication easy. When your goal is to make new friends and be a good friend, retaining clients no longer becomes a concern. People will naturally work with you when they need an agent.
You can take social media a step further by building a brand around your name. This is an effective way of letting your sphere of influence know about your career, achievement, and progress without contacting them one at a time.
Additionally, this will remind people in your sphere of influence that you are a real estate agent doing great things with your career. When they need an agent, they will think of you because they will associate anything real estate related with you.
Letâs discuss the power of content marketing. The reason why YouTube and real estate agent celebrities are closely connected is because celebrities know the influence of creating content. Creating content increase your reach and influence to people who are outside of your sphere of influence. When the content created is high quality, people will share it. This is how your reach and influence grows.
Letâs see an example of this in the real world. Ryan Serhant is a popular name among real estate agents because heâs a known celebrity. Part of his following includes people inside and outside of the real estate industry. There are thousands of people who know this specific real estate agent because of the content he creates.
The reason why so many people know about Ryan Serhant is because he has created copious amounts of content. He has done this with videos, television interviews, broadcast shows, social media posts, tweets, instagram posts, and more. He has attracted more people to his brand and style, which is evident in everything he creates. Therefore, he has created a reputation, also known as a brand name.
So, how does this translate to finding new leads? Content marketing will help you build an audience of people. A few of these people will seek out your services. This is passive lead generation. People who see your content will seek you out because they are in need of a real estate agent. They saw your content and turned to you for professional help. Again, when they think of real estate, they will think of you.
Although attaining celebrity status is unlikely, you can build local recognition through content marketing.
The Fundamentals of Finding Your First Real Estate Client
Thereâs good news. You can practice the fundamental methods of getting your first real estate client. These methods are not flashy or revolutionary. They are the fundamentals that, when put into practice, are proven actions you can do right now to get your first real estate client.
Prospecting is a necessary part to growing your businessâespecially when you are a new real estate agent. At first, these methods are hard. They put you, the new agent, into a vulnerable position because you will experience failure through rejection.
Coping with rejection is hard. Moreover, the fear of rejection keeps us from action. But, overcoming this fear is paramount to building a successful career.
So, letâs get started. Here are the top 5 most effective ways you can get your first real estate client:
Prospecting does not get more fundamental than this. Door knocking is the oldest prospecting method in the book. Every real estate agent has been told, at some point in their career, to practice door knocking. Door knocking involves knocking on homeownersâ doors to see if they would like to sell their home or buy a new home.
Door knocking is a common prospecting method because it is an effective way to find new leads in a targeted neighborhood. Â
Surprisingly, most new real estate agents door knock ineffectively  because they miss one important ingredient. They should always bring value. When you give value, the interaction becomes worthwhile even when they are not interested in your service. Contrastingly, if you do not offer value, the homeowner will not have gained anything from the interaction if they are not interested in your service.
Value can be anything that will benefit the homeownerâs well-being. One effective gift you can provide is the gift of knowledge. You can show homeowners what their home is worth. This might not convince anyone to make the decision to list their home in the moment. However, this knowledge can incentivize them to list in the future.
At the very least, the lead will now have a document that tells them how much money they can earn. Therefore, they will contact you when they are ready to list.
Oftentimes, homeowners are surprised to see how much money they can make from selling their home. They might be in the midst of thinking about upgrading houses or downsizing to a smaller house. That is why giving them the gift of knowledge can inspire them to take action.
Cold calling is like door knocking but done over the phone. It involves contacting leads, often without a rapport (hence the term âcoldâ). The goal is to see if they would like to sell their home or buy a new home. Cold calling can be done from your home, office, or your favorite coffee shop.
Just like door knocking, cold calling is quantity driven. The more people you call, the more likely you will find a prospective first real estate client. Cold calling is a common method to discover clients from a list of leads. The reason why this is common, just like door knocking, is because it is an effective method to find interested home buyers and home sellers.
Similar to door knocking, the chances of building a rapport increases when you give value. Value piques the interest of the lead. You contact leads cold and without warning. Therefore, you should give value to warm up to the conversation. You giving the contact valueâin the form of a giftâis a great way to incentivize them to list. This value being the gift of knowledge.
The contact will know how much their house is worth and how much money they can make, therefore incentivizing to sell their home. The contact might not sell their home right away, but they will have your contact information when they are ready. However, you might get lucky. You could contact someone who is already thinking of selling their home and this gift is the extra encouragement for them to sell their home or buy a new one.
How To Get Clients As A New Real Estate Agent
How to get clients in real estate?
Now that you know how to get clients in real estate, it’s time to get to work. Over time, clients may come to you, but when you’re first starting out, you have to come to clients. Do your best to advertise yourself online and in your local community, and you’ll start to build up a solid client base.
How do real estate agents find new clients?
Whether you’re a new real estate agent or a seasoned professional in the real estate industry, successful real estate agents actively search for and nurture their database of clients. Doing this starts with generating leads and finding those real estate clients. We’ve listed these seven tips to get you started with finding your new clients. 1.
How do real estate agents gain clients?
Those who work in real estate gain clients by networking with people in person and online. They’re often proactive in promoting their work to potential clients, meeting sales prospects and maintaining relationships with those they meet. Related: 10 Tips on How To Succeed as a Real Estate Agent
What do clients want from a real estate agent?
Clients are looking for an agent that they can trust. They want someone who is knowledgeable about the market and who will always have their best interests in mind. They also want someone available and responsive to their needs. How can you get the best real estate leads?
