What is a realistic time frame for real estate seller leads?
On average, the time frames that we see for our seller lead clients, are between 2-4 months.
No one wishes that were any faster than I do, however for seller lead generation that is not realistic. As real estate agents, we must accept that we are working off our client’s time frame, not our own.
Your potential clients will have many reasons why they are not ready to immediately list their home with you. Perhaps they want to wait until their children’s school year is over. Maybe they need to wait until the summer to fix their roof. Or, because their new job in a different city does not begin for 9 months, they want to wait until they get a little bit closer to having to move until they put their home on the market. When getting ready to list a previous home of mine many years ago, right before we were ready to sign the listing contract, we discovered that our pool pump completely died and needed to be replaced. That delayed us listing our home for several months.
We are working off of our clients time frame, not ours.
Whatever their reason is, you most likely are not going to be able to accelerate your clients time frame for selling their home. However, I am quite sure that you will still want to list their home in 9 months, and that is why longer time frame leads are fantastic for building your pipeline for the next year. Before you know it, you will have a fairly large size group of leads waiting for you at the 6-, 8- and 12-month marks. To know that you have plenty of new listing business waiting for you over the next 12 months is a very satisfying feeling.
If you need a more instant ROI, I would highly suggest working with buyer leads. The time frame for real estate buyer leads will be greatly accelerated when compared to the time frame for seller leads. It is fun looking at homes. Everyone likes driving around and walking through different properties and imagining their family living there. You might not be enjoying yourself driving them around all day, however I can promise that your clients are having a great time. You are dealing with a much different mindset when meeting clients at a Starbucks, or your office, and then driving them around to look at other people’s homes, than it is for them to invite you into their home for a listing presentation, where they and their family sleep at night. That is going to take a different level of comfort and trust, both of which are typically earned over time.
The mindset of seller leads is completely different from buyer leads.
Most buyers are not too concerned with which agent takes them out and shows them properties. As long as your buyers are comfortable with your knowledge of the area, your ability to find them the type of home they are looking for, and you personally, most buyers will work with the very first agent that they speak with.
When working with seller leads, you need to be prepared for a completely different mindset than when compared with buyer leads. For the reasons outlined above, buyer leads are typically having fun when looking at homes. I have sold 4 homes in my lifetime, and not one of those experiences would I describe as fun. First off, you have a Realtor coming into your home and telling you that it is not worth what you think it is. If we want the home to sell, in the time frame and at the price we are looking for, then this, that, and the other thing will all need to be fixed and painted before we can put the home on the market. To top it all off, you need to vacate your home sometimes within 30 minutes of a potential buyer wanting to come over and poke through your closets and drawers. It is not a fun experience.
Seller leads can take longer to cultivate.
The only way to earn your potential listings trust is with your knowledge, expertise, and time. Treat all your leads the same, no matter what their time frame is. Make sure to let them know that their time frame is all that matters, and you are just as happy to work with them 6 months from now as you are today. The vast majority of your leads will appreciate this, and you will go a long way towards building the trust needed to get invited over for a listing presentation.
