Real estate agents, more so than most in other industries, will constantly have leads coming and going. When someone buys a house, they’ll typically stay there for some years.
You get to make money off of them once in most cases (even if it’s a great buy-sell combo with a hefty commission). Then it may take several years or several decades before they need you again.
It’s a fast-paced market, but it’s essential to keep up with all your incoming leads so you can capitalize on opportunities for more sales.
Lead management for real estate agents can be complex. That’s why in this post, we’re going to go over everything you need to know about real estate lead management.
Also, we’ll cover different software and CRM options that can help, how to organize your leads for the best results, and the best automation integrations for streamlining your lead management processes:
What are leads in real estate?
Real estate lead management involves keeping track of all leads. That means anyone who gets in touch to inquire about the market, including buying, selling, or renting.
Qualified leads, of course, are preferred. Qualified leads are high-intent customers who have taken certain steps to buy, sell, or rent.
This may be having their paperwork in order for renters, or being pre-approved by a lender if they’re buying. These are high-value customers who are much more likely to complete a purchase.
If you are unsure of how to find a legitimate lead source to work with, worry not, as this guide on the best places to buy real estate leads can help you identify some of the most reliable players in the real estate industry.
How to manage real estate leads
Most real estate agents have multi-touchpoint sales funnels and ad campaigns running at all points that are designed to help continually bring in new leads.
This might include organic social media campaigns, advertising through platforms like Realtor.com, or having a formal referral network.
As your leads come in, you need to have a central place to store, manage, and track them.
We highly recommend implementing real estate lead management software through a CRM that integrates with your real estate lead generation software.
LeadsBridge’s Freemium Plan lets you integrate your lead ads with your lead management tools for free to create an automated real estate lead follow-up system.
Below, you can see some of our popular integrations for running real estate lead generation software (free plan).
Ideally, this would look like:
- You get leads from Facebook ads, which are sent via a platform like LeadsBridge to your HubSpot CRM
- Your sales team is notified via the CRM through email, Slack, or in-app notifications about new leads
- Data in your CRM regarding leads in audience segments is pushed to your email software for follow-ups.
It’s important to have a CRM that works for your business with real-estate-centric features. We’ll take a look at five specific CRMs that we recommend in just a few sections.
What counts as real estate lead management software?
Real estate lead management software is any SaaS tool that makes it easier for you to keep track of your leads.
This typically includes a CRM with lead management options (which we’ll look at next). Ideally, it will also include automation software to help push lead information from place to place. This is what LeadsBridge can help you with.
Lead management software for real estate agents should come specifically with realtor-focused features in mind.
This means that the tools aren’t product-centric, but instead focus heavily on consumer relationships and allow you to enter in customer data.
Ideally, they’ll also integrate natively or through third-party tools with real estate platforms. LeadsBridge, for example, offers several integrations for Zillow, such as:
Best real estate CRMs & real estate lead management software
There are plenty of great CRM tools on the market, but not every single option out there will be a good choice for real estate agents.
Some are designed to focus on product sales. This, however, limits their usefulness for real estate agents who are tracking incredibly detailed customer data.
There are some free real estate CRMs at low prices (like HubSpot on its base plan), and some come with paid plans after their initial trial.
These are our five favorite real estate CRMs (and links to our integrations for them):
- BoomTownROI— CRM and lead generation tool designed specifically for real estate agents, it’s one of the fastest-growing tools in the industry. See how to set up our BoomTownROI integration here and below:
- HubSpot— If you’re looking for a free real estate CRM tool, this is one to consider. It offers a basic plan that’s completely free, with fairly extensive features. It’s not real estate specific, but it’s got plenty of versatile features and can be used by agents as well. See how our HubSpot integration works here.
- Top Producer— Another real estate-specific CRM. It gives you social insights on clients and MLS insights on individual properties to make your job easier and more efficient. See how our Top Producer integration works here.
- LionDesk— It’s not one of the most well-known CRMs on the market, but it is one that has impressive real estate features, including the ability to manage transactions, generate leads, and more. See how our LionDesk integration works here.
- FollowUpBoss— One more real estate CRM and lead management software option that we have to mention. Pull and manage leads from over 200 sources, and get analytics to know where they’re coming from. See our FollowUpBoss integration here.
How to organize real estate leads
Even with all the right tools to manage your real estate leads, you still need to classify and qualify them. This is how real estate agents find high-value targets that are most likely to convert and spend their time accordingly.
Let’s look at a few different options for how to organize real estate leads.
Categorize by qualified vs. not qualified
One of the most direct options when it comes to how to organize real estate leads is to look at qualified vs. unqualified leads.
If leads are qualified, it means that they’ve taken steps to be pre-approved for a home. A lender has given them the all-clear; they’re not just window shopping.
And when it comes to real estate lead management, this may be one of the most immediate signals of whether or not a buyer and/or seller is ready to move (literally and figuratively).
So, first ask about this when you first make contact with clients (and ideally on any lead forms).
Then, they can tell you how much they’re approved for so you can log that into your CRM right away.
And if they’re not qualified yet, you can introduce them to your favorite lenders to get them moving on the process.
Categorize by intent & engagement
In your CRM, you can add labels to different contacts for easier real estate lead management. One of the labels you can add yourself is what their intent level is and how engaged they are.
Are they actively reaching out and sending you listings to ask about attending a house showing?
Are they wanting to get on your radar for next year, or “just wanting to see what’s out there?”
Someone who asks for a quote on what their house would be worth may not be as engaged as someone who has a firm timeline for when they’ll need to relocate.
Categorize by need
Different types of customers will need different things and different amounts of following up.
Someone who is selling will need help getting their home prepared. However, they may not need much aside from you taking offers in a hot market like today’s.
Meanwhile, someone who is buying is going to need to go to multiple listings and be ready with rapid-fire offers.
Residential vs. commercial or buying vs. renting also have different needs.
And don’t forget to segment by cost ranges and specific needs, like a fenced-in yard or a senior living community. These make a huge impact on helping you find what your clients need while assisting multiple clients all at once.
Real estate CRM lead management best practices
Winning over the real estate niche competition comes down to two factors: speed and discipline. How you operate your CRM system is part of it too.
These real estate CRM lead management best practices ensure you get the best out of your leads.
- Have a below-5-minute speed-to-lead
- Set a target: every new lead gets a response in under five minutes with no exceptions.
- Fire instant SMS and email alerts to the assigned owner and escalate to a backup after two minutes.
- Also, track response time per source and per triggered automated response to find out what needs improving.
You can do this easily using the real-time data sync feature in LeadsBridge integrations. The following integrations are free to set up and use.
Add lead stages, segmentation fields, and next steps to your pipeline
Standardize stages in an example order might include:
- New
- Contacted
- Qualified
- Showing
- Offer
- Under Contract
- Closed
- Nurture
- Blocked
Note that the last two shouldn’t change unless required fields are completed.
On every touch, also add a column for Budget, Area, Timeline, and Financing status. The idea is to replace obscure reminders with outcome-based tasks that include an exact due date (“Schedule first showing by Friday”).
Prioritize with intent-based lead scoring
Score activity that proves buying intent, such as saved searches, listing returns, alert clicks, SMS replies, and pre-approval evidence.
Auto-generate daily call lists sorted by score and recency so prime hours hit prime prospects.
Automatically downgrade those who waste time after defined no-response windows and shift them to long-term nurturing. Review score weights monthly and tighten them to reflect the current market pace.
Run a multi-channel follow-up rhythm
Use a proven sequence and accelerate your incoming alerts so they feel curated instead of spammy. Here’s a rough idea:
If you don’t want any additional software to do it for you, you can choose to activate LeadsBridge’s Email receipt feature.
With every incoming lead, you or a team member gets an alert. This is an optional feature that comes with all LeadsBridge integrations, including the freemium tier bridges.
Measure source-to-close data
Track speed-to-lead, contact rate, appointment rate, show rate, offer rate, and close rate by source and agent. Also, attribute revenue to both the first and the meaningful last touch.
On the workflow side, arrange aging-by-stage and overdue tasks on a dashboard visible to the whole team and review it weekly. Move spend to channels with a defensible ROI, and then cut the rest.
Keep your real estate leads engaged
While you’re focusing on real estate lead management, remember that keeping leads engaged will be crucial to success.
Here are a few quick tips to help:
- Reach out regularly.
Send them updates unsolicited, whether it’s a house to look at or a change in the market that you think they’d like to know. This solidifies your brand’s relationship with them.
- Have a real estate lead follow-up system in place.
LeadsBridge, for example, offers real estate marketing automation via automated data bridges. So if users take an action on Zillow, you can follow up immediately through your email software like Mailchimp, before a competing agent can snag them.
- Always follow up even after a sale.
Your work isn’t over after a sale is made, because many customers will readily refer their friends and family your way. Referrals can be invaluable, so continue reaching out and consider staying in touch through social media platforms like Facebook.
Curious about other advertising platforms you can use to generate real estate leads? Check these guides on:
Final thoughts
Regardless of the market you choose to specialize in, remember that relationship management is necessary for effective real estate lead management. With that in mind, and with the right tools in place, you’ll start closing more sales in no time.
Want to learn more about how the right tools can streamline your real estate lead management? Check out LeadsBridge’s real estate software integrations.
