Real Estate Buyer Leads - You Get What You Pay For

© 2010, Brandon Cornett. All rights reserved.

I was doing some Internet research recently to see what type of lead generation phrases are being searched through Google, Yahoo, etc. And I was surprised to see the word "free" come up quite a bit.

In other words, it seems that a lot of real estate agents are using the Internet to try and find a source for free real estate leads.

Here's a quick word about real estate buyer leads (regardless of the source), based on my own experiences working with agents over the years. You get what you pay for!

Essentially, there are two types of buyer lead sources that real estate agents can pursue. You can either generate the leads yourself, or you can buy into a lead referral program. If you want to increase the number of buyer leads you get from your own website, check out this article on the subject.

Real Estate Web Leads - The Book

After repeated requests, I've finally created a book on website lead generation for rel estate agents. This book is a compilation of the techniques I've used over the years.

If you want to by real estate leads from some other source, keep the "you get what you pay for" principle in mind. With regard to free buyer leads, consider this. It takes a lot of time, energy and money to initiate and sustain a lead-gathering program. So why would somebody want to give those valuable leads away for free. I can't think of a reason ... unless the leads are junk, or there is some other catch to the "free" offer.

Two Types of Buyer Leads

Here's the difference between real estate buyer leads that are worth paying for, and those that are marketed as being "free"...

• Valuable leads worth buying are basically the names and contact info of people who are actively seeking home buying information in your area. In other words, these people are your ideal audience -- they are in need of real estate information (and probably services as well).
• Low-value leads are usually nothing more than the names and contact information of regular folks ... with no consideration as to whether or not they are in the market for a home. These are the "discount leads" and free leads you see offered on a lot of shady websites.

The difference, of course, is that the high-value leads are much easier to turn into clients, because you know that they are (A) in your local area and (B) actively shopping for a home in the area as well. Low-value leads are basically people you know nothing about, aside from their name and contact info. Why would you even contact people like that?