7 Tips for How to Follow Up with Real Estate Leads

As an agent, the ability to gracefully follow up with real estate leads is one of the most crucial skills that you can develop. After all, knowing how to effectively nurture leads is a key part of securing new business.

To that end, whether you’re just getting started or you’ve been in the business for years, here are seven tips that you can follow to ensure that your leads are getting the attention they deserve.

Read them over in order to learn how to incorporate them into your process.

Here are 7 tips for following up with real estate leads

1. Respond to real estate leads right away with an autoresponder.

Making sure that you’re able to respond quickly when a lead comes in is a crucial part of turning a lead into a new client. These days, the vast majority of real estate clients are looking for somebody who can work on their schedule.

That said, that doesn’t mean that you have to be chained to your phone at all hours of the day. In this instance, autoresponders are a great tool to have at your disposal. As the name suggests, this technology allows you to send an automatically generated response as soon as a lead attempts to contact you, usually in the form of either an email or a text message.

In this case, your email could say something like, “Thanks for getting in touch with me. I’m away from my desk right now, but I would be happy to answer any questions you may have when I return.”

2. Ask for their preferred contact method and time.

Whatever your autoresponder message ends up being, you’re going to want to make sure to end it the same way. In particular, it’s important to get the details of how fast to get in contact with the lead and to set up a time for the two of you to talk further.

Here, you might say something like, “Is there a good time for us to talk further? If so, let me know when works for you and what is the best way to get in touch with you.”

By asking their preference on a time to talk, you’re showing your potential new client that you’re willing to work around their schedule. However, at the same time, you’re moving them forward towards the next step in your lead funnel, the initial conversation.

3. Show up on time.

If a potential client responds to your email positively by giving you a time and a phone number, the next step is crucial. In this instance, you have to be prepared to take the meeting at the time provided.

If you really can’t make it due to another scheduling conflict, it’s okay to email them back and ask for an alternative time. However, once a time is settled on, it’s important to show up and be ready to provide information.

4. Answer their questions.

The vast majority of real estate leads will show up to the initial conversation with some questions in hand. They might be about a specific property or the real estate process in general. In either case, you’re going to want to be prepared to answer them to the best of your ability.

If you can, do your best to get the questions from the prospect in advance of your initial conversation. That way, you won’t be trying to look up information while keeping the conversation flowing. Overall, following this method will help ensure that you appear prepared.

5. Close with next steps.

Once you’ve answered their questions, it’s important to close a conversation by laying out next steps. In some cases, that might be in scheduling an initial client meeting at your office to educate them about the real estate process. In others, you might feel ready to take them to see a specific property.

Either way, it’s important to close with definitive next steps. You’re going to want to take the role of the leader here and guide the conversation towards scheduling your next meeting. Do your best to get something on the books before you hang up.

6. Have a system for leads who don’t respond.

That said, not every lead is going to respond to your autoresponder email or your phone calls. It’s important to have a dedicated system for those leads that don’t respond so that you know how to follow up effectively without letting them just fall by the wayside.

Usually, this comes either in the form of an email, text, or phone call drip campaign. However, most people use some combination of the three methods to follow up with the lead as best that they can.

7. Know when to back off.

Still, it’s also important to know when to let the lead go. If your lead has not responded after the fifth or sixth time that you’ve reached out to them, it’s probably best to move on to other, more receptive prospects.

At a certain point, if you don’t let go, it can be considered harassment, which is a larger issue that you likely don’t want to have to contend with.