Why Real Estate Buyer Leads Can Suck the Life Out of You…Or Pay Huge Rewards!

You no doubt find yourself on this page because you want more real estate buyer leads for your business.

But what if I told you that what you consider “leads” could actually be sucking the life (and profit) out of your business?

We see it every day!

Agents constantly wasting massive amounts of time, energy and money chasing the wrong real estate buyer leads! And then they compound that mistake by investing the same amount of time and effort into every single lead.

Again, IT’S A HUGE MISTAKE!

The problem becomes painfully obvious with buyer leads bought or generated online.

Why?

Less than 3% of all online leads ever actually close a transaction!

That means 97% of your leads are a complete waste of time, energy and especially money!

Here’s where I always get pushback!

When I say less than 3% will ever transact agents often balk at that number because of all the hype and propaganda being fed to agents these days.

However, let’s look at actual numbers and then you decide.

Frankly, I think 3% is a very generous number when you actually do the math.

Right now, according to the new 900lb Gorilla in real estate web traffic, Zillow, they claim to get over 88 million unique real estate shoppers each month.

At the very same time, the NAR says agents are selling 430,000 homes a month.

If we credit Zillow with EVERY SINGLE TRANSACTION that would mean .48% of their traffic, or less than ½ of 1%, actually closes a transaction.

Ok…

What does it tell us?

Even though Zillow has an AMAZING amount of traffic…

We’ve got to quit buying into THE MYTH!

Yes, home shoppers look and do research online…EVERYONE DOES!

That’s the problem…EVERYONE DOES!

If it was just buyers and sellers looking around it would be great!

But the numbers tell us that there’s a whole lot of “window shopping” going on out there. In fact, according to Zillow’s own actual numbers, a least 99.52% of their traffic falls into the “window shopper” category.

See even if you gave Zillow 100% of the credit, it would mean less than ½ of 1% of their traffic ever even closes a transaction!

That’s why I say 3% is being extremely generous.

See according to the NAR only 4% of agents’ business came from online marketing!

That means 96% of their business DID NOT!

Now if that’s true…

Where does all the business come from?

It comes from repeat clients and referrals, offline marketing, and a whole host of other relationships that bring listings and sales through agents’ doors.

Yet, agents continue to buy into the online mythology at a faster pace every day!

So if real estate buyers and sellers are doing all this research and shopping around online so much, when and where do they enter the actual buy or sell cycle?

It’s actually very simple, logical, and straightforward…

When they pull out their wallet, spend $75-$100 to fill up their gas tank, and then proceed to take 2-3 hours on their day off driving around the neighborhood they would like to live in…

That’s a Good Prospect!

Here’s a quick example of how our agents reach prospect just like these and create an opportunity to have a live conversation with them 80%-90% of the time!

Here’s a sample flier that averages 8-10 leads per listing per month.

This flier is very different than virtually any other flier you’ll see in your market. Notice there are no bedrooms, baths or square footage numbers? The key to its effectiveness is in all the subtle little details.

So an agent with 10 listings, if deployed correctly, could expect 80-100 inbound lead calls a month using this approach.

Now contrast the drive-by prospect with someone in his or her PJs, eating a bowl of Cheerios, watching I Love Lucy reruns and who just happens to see a Zillow commercial that triggers a lovely daydream…

Is That a Good Prospect?

Maybe…

But frankly just because they can breathe doesn’t mean they can afford a house.

And honestly, if they want to go “window shopping” I’d rather not pay good money for that lead, waste enormous amounts of time and effort chasing them, and then rarely ever even talk with them.

If you waste 100-200-300 phones calls trying to reach people like that, who on a whim thought about buying a house, enjoy Ramon noodles and not being able to pay your bills.

No…

If you really step back from all the hyped-up, pie in the sky baloney agents are being fed, it makes sense to focus far more energy on talking to people who are in their cars!

In fact, the numbers are so you good you’ll be amazed!

Here are the Numbers…

We deliver over 100,000 leads a month to real estate agents all across the United States and Canada and here’s what we’ve found in an informal survey of over 25,000 drive-by calls:

21% bought or listed a home within 30-90 days

48% closed a transaction within 4-12 months

and 31% didn’t qualify.

Pretty amazing stats don’t you think?

People in their cars have the right DNA (Desire, Need and Ability) to close a real estate transaction nearly 70% of the time!

Here’s Something that Even Surprised Us…

We’ve always known drive-by prospects are extremely good buyer leads, but what surprised us was the potential for listing leads.

Our agents reported that approximately 20% of the drive-by prospects they spoke with were actually seller opportunities, or listing leads.

It was generally one of two scenarios.

It was a neighbor a few blocks away checking home values, because they were thinking about selling too.

Or…

It was a buyer who wanted to live in a particular neighborhood, but they lived in a home they needed to sell first.

So…

Buyers are Often Listing Leads Too!

So it confirms something we’ve been hearing for years. Agents tell us regularly, “I took a brochure call and just listed the neighbor’s home down the street.”

The bottom line is the best prospects are willing to spend time and money doing feet-on-the-street research…not just daydream about what they might do someday!

The bigger question is who do you want to spend your time, energy and money focusing on?

The quickest and easiest way to have live conversations, actually talk, with people who are interested in buying or selling real estate is to click on the link below and check out our service…