5 Tips for Building a Real Estate Lead List

Your leads list is perhaps the most important document in your real estate business. It contains the names and details of property owners in your market that might provide a return on your lead generation investment. By maintaining and updating this list over time, you can match seller leads with the right buyers and facilitate the real estate transaction process. 

But how do you go about building real estate lead lists?

This blog post tells you how to compile leads for your list for more successful selling outcomes. 

1. Network With Industry Professionals

Maintaining connections with the right people in your industry can help you identify lucrative property owners for your leads list. Through networking, you can establish a community of professionals who provide information about owners looking to sell their residential or commercial units soon. These professionals include:

• Attorneys who work with sellers putting their properties on the market
• Investors who purchase and resell properties in your region
• Brokers who work with buyers and sellers
• Mortgage lenders who work with buyers and sellers

The professionals above are unlikely to provide leads unless you give them something in return. For example, you can recommend a specific attorney to sellers in exchange for information from that attorney about potential seller leads in your market. This exchange of information can help you build a valuable lead list that lets agents identify more selling opportunities and eventually close more deals. 

2. Search Public Property Databases

You can search public property records in your area to find seller leads for your leads list. For example, you might search for the most expensive properties in your region—those that will generate the most significant commission opportunities for your firm—and then add the names of the people who own these properties to your list. You can then send direct mail to these owners and explain why you are the best real estate firm to sell their properties in the future. 

The problem with searching public databases is that records are often out-of-date or poorly maintained. That can make your list less effective and waste the time of agents sourcing and nurturing seller leads. It can also be time-consuming to search these databases. 

Note: Public property databases will only list a property and its owner. You won’t find contact information such as phone numbers and email addresses in these records. 

3. Cold Calling

Cold calling is one of the most effective ways to find names for your leads list. You can contact property owners in your regions—preferably ones in hot markets or those who own expensive properties that will generate more commission for your business—by phone and ask them if they plan to sell their properties in the coming months. 

For your cold calling strategy to work, you will need the phone numbers of property owners. (As previously mentioned, public databases don’t contain this information.) However, you might already have contact information of potential seller leads in your customer relationship management (CRM) system if property owners have previously used your services or enquired about selling their properties.

4. Market Your Business

Sometimes, it’s easier for seller leads to come to you. By increasing awareness of your real estate firm, you can attract property owners when they are ready to sell their residential or commercial units. At this point, you can add their names and contact details to your leads list. 

Here are some ways to market your business and attract more sellers: 

Optimize your website for search engines

Creating website content with relevant keywords that property owners search for can help your web pages and blog posts appear higher on search engine results pages. 

Advertise

Advertising your business requires an initial outlay, but it could generate a return on your investment. You might want to promote your firm through conventional media channels like television, radio, and newspapers or pay for search engine ads. Whatever medium you choose, you can increase awareness about your services and stay in the mind of property owners when they sell their residential or commercial units. 

Social media

Engaging with followers on social media can help you create a digital presence and promote your services to property owners who don’t respond to conventional advertising.

YouTube

Creating YouTube content that explains the benefits of working with your business can also increase awareness of your services.

5. Use Prospect Now

The easiest way to build seller lead lists for your business is to use a property and owner database like ProspectNow. It differs from public databases because it lists the contact information of potential leads in your market and can identify off-market deals likely to close in the next 12 months. That can help you find property owners who could put their residential or commercial units on the market shortly.

ProspectNow also helps you find the most profitable leads that generate valuable commission opportunities by listing comparables, market fit, sales, detailed ownership, loan origination, and historical valuation information. Instead of cold calling contacts or forging relationships with industry professionals, you can access owners in your area looking for a firm like yours to sell their properties. 

Prospect Now is like a personal research assistant for building seller lead lists. Since 2008, the machine-learning-based platform has helped more than 33,000 real estate professionals worldwide identify and nurture leads and close deals. 

Final Word About Seller Lead Lists

A leads list helps your agents identify the most profitable property owners that generate the most commission for your firm. There are various ways to build a lead list, such as networking, cold calling, and marketing your business. However, investing in a property and owner database like ProspectNow will make it easier to source leads in your specific region and move them through your sales and marketing funnels. 

With ProspectNow, every property in America is at your fingertips. Start your free trial now!