For Agents

How to Generate Renter Leads and Maximize Your Qualification Process

Rebecca Hickey

Leads are the lifeblood of real estate professionals. You must know how to effectively generate, respond to, and qualify them to succeed in this market, especially before you start receiving referrals. Working with renters creates a great opportunity for you to quickly build relationships and develop essential skills as a real estate professional. They also allow you to complete more transactions, as those deals typically happen faster.

How do you generate renter leads effectively?

There are several ways to generate renter leads, but we will focus on ads. Posting ads with listings online generates results quickly, allows interested renters to engage with your listings 24/7, and provides you with an easy and repeatable process when you secure new listings. Here are the best practices you should follow when posting online:

Know Your Market: Understand factors such as rental prices, location, and average rents to control the quality and quantity of leads.
Create a plan and be consistent: Develop a consistent and disciplined plan for ad posting activities, aiming for at least three days a week with the goal of doing at least five ads per day.
Test and track results: Experiment with posting times and track the posts that receive the best responses. Iterate and improve to attract the best leads for your listings.
Use photos and clear descriptions: Craft concise descriptions (around 400 words) with clear highlights to capture renters' interest and use high-quality photos that showcase the best features of the listings.
Explore areas for additional visibility: Look for opportunities for additional visibility by exploring local schools, corporate sites, or bulletin boards where renters may be present, and inquire about posting ads in those locations.
Have a lead response and qualification process: Develop a system for promptly responding to leads and efficiently managing the qualification process to avoid losing potential business.

Make sure you have permission to post ads for the listings. Emphasize the value proposition such as increased visibility and reduced lead work for property owners.

What are the best practices for lead response?

What do you do now that you have your ads set up and are getting leads that need responses? Renters tend to be less patient than buyers so it's important to have a process to remove the guesswork on why, what, and when to respond, increasing the likelihood of closing that deal.

Lead conversions are 391% higher when you call within a minute of an online inquiry.

Consider having a diverse set of outreach methods to increase the odds of contact:

Text your client about their inquiry and set a time to talk
Send them a follow-up email after the text
Call them at the stated time 
If you miss them, text and email again, and set a different time to talk
Repeat the process at least three times
Cut bait after at least three times

On average, it takes seven outreach methods before a sale is closed. Go through this process at least three times to ensure you're making your best effort to communicate with the lead and maximize your chances of conversion. If the client doesn't want to talk to you, move on.

How do you qualify a lead?

There are three primary stages to conducting a successful qualification call:

The introduction: Your goal is to ensure that they know you are qualified to help them and specialize in working with renters.
The qualification: You need to determine if this is a solid lead and what are their rental needs (see table below).
The closing: Discuss any questions the lead may have about working with you and set expectations on the next steps. Follow up the phone call with an email that includes several listings they may be interested in.

What are the next steps?

To get started, check out the resources linked below. Decide who your ideal target is and create short/long-term goals to help you reach them. Begin posting ads for renters at least three times per week for an hour or for a certain number of posts. Implement a lead response and qualification system to maximize your lead generation efforts and catapult your real estate business to the top!

Resources to get started:

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