Why Are Internet Real Estate Leads so Bad? And How to Win Anyway

Do you buy real estate leads from the internet?

If so, you are probably one of the many real estate professionals I consult with who AREN'T happy with the results.

Of course there are some out there who live by buying internet leads. That's fine. Good for them.

But I am talking to the rest of you. The ones who have not yet started buying internet real estate leads or have bought them but are disappointed with the results.

And I KNOW there are a lot of you out there...

Here are a few quick facts from the 2005 REALTOR(r) Technology Efficiency Survey, Co-Sponsored by the Center for REALTOR(r) Technology and the National Association of REALTORS(r).

Talking about buying real estate leads:

  • 59% of the respondents said they would like the leads to be more qualified. Many of the leads they received were not interested in buying or selling a home. They simply had requested information about a mortgage rate or other related inquiry.

  • Many of the leads were not provided on a timely basis. Many of the leads provided had already found another REALTOR(r) or had already completed their transaction.

  • 3 of the 386 respondents to this question said they were completely satisfied with their lead generation service.

    • So that's 3 out of 386 that are satisfied - less than 1%.

    In a nutshell, the quality of the "leads" stinks. They are unqualified and many of them are of no more use to you than the other "leads" that you can find in your local phonebook or by standing and yelling on the corner of a busy street.

    When you buy real estate leads, you often don't know if the lead, Mr. John Doe, responded to an ad for a particular property or simply requested information on how to make money buying foreclosures or refinance his mortgage.

    What's even more startling is that with the low levels of satisfaction with buying internet real estate leads, only 12% of those who responded to the survey use any other service beyond third party lead generation programs to qualify their Internet leads.

    There clearly is a problem here... but where there is a problem, there is always an opportunity.

    So let's stop dwelling on the negative already - that doesn't really help you after a certain point, does it?

    So what's the answer?

    Don't buy leads, create your own...

    And I don't mean filling up your appointment books with cold calling, door knocking or all of those networking meetings that have a knack for attracting some of the neediest business people on the planet.

    It's not that there is anything wrong with doing the stuff above, I just know for a fact that there are better, more effective and efficient ways to generate business.

    The smartest real estate businesses don't go out and GET business, they figure out a system that brings the business to them.

    What you need is to create a system that accomplishes the following things for your business:

    1. Keep a large group of folks aware of you and what you do.

    2. Help filter out the people who will soon be in the market to buy or sell and get them to raise their hands.

    3. Give those filtered prospects an extremely compelling (and unique) reason to call you, right now and make it easy for them to do it.

    4. Leverage the value of your happy clients by having them bring you business through referrals.

    That's a sales system... Something you create once and have running 24 hours a day. As time passes, you test response and tweak your system. And you keep testing and keep tweaking until the "leads" start flowing. If you do it right, they WILL start flowing... more than you can handle by yourself.

    Once you get your system in place, then use technology to automate it and monitor the results it creates.

    Jason Leister, the Real Estate Technology and Marketing Guru (tm), is owner of Computer Super Guy, LLC, a technology and marketing firm that helps real estate professionals profit with technology.

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