Real estate lead generation companies give agents, teams, and brokers a shortcut to the closing table by doing all the lead capture and organization work for you—so you can focus your efforts on working with bona fide real estate leads who are motivated buyers and sellers.
Since choosing a real estate lead generation company can be tough, we’ve done a deep dive into the top six real estate lead generation companies and reviewed them side-by-side so you can make the best choice for your business. Let us help you determine where to spend your paid lead generation dollars most effectively in 2022.
Best Real Estate Lead Generation Companies for 2022
| Company | ||
|---|---|---|
| Market Leader (Best Overall) | ||
| BoldLeads | ||
| REDX | ||
| Real Geeks | ||
| Zillow | ||
| SmartZip |
The Close Recommendation: Market Leader
Based on all the lead gen systems we’ve reviewed in this guide, if we had $1,000 a month to spend, we’d choose Market Leader. A guaranteed number of leads every month paired with a surprisingly robust customer relationship management system (CRM) makes their product our top choice.
Best Lead Generation Company for Guaranteed Leads: Market Leader
Prices starting at $139 / month
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How Market Leader Generates Real Estate Leads
Market Leader pricing starts at $139 per month, plus $25 or more per lead, depending on your market.
To generate real estate leads, Market Leader takes the ad agency approach (similar to BoldLeads), placing targeted ads in places your prospects are already spending their time (Facebook, Google, and so on). These ads direct prospects to Market Leader’s landing page HouseValues.com (for seller leads) or a personally branded, IDX search-enabled site (for buyer leads).
Once a lead gives their information, it’s automatically populated in the Market Leader customer relationship management (CRM) system (or wherever you’d like it to go), and then you take over with nurturing and conversion.
[Related resource: Lead Nurturing: Tips & Scripts to Avoid Overtasking]
Get Started With Market Leader
Best Lead Generation Company for Exclusive Leads: BoldLeads
Prices starting at $399 / month
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How BoldLeads Generates Real Estate Leads
BoldLeads pricing starts at $399 per month, plus a $250 minimum ad spend.
Like Market Leader, BoldLeads generates leads by creating and placing ads on platforms like Facebook and Google to draw prospects to customized landing pages. There, your leads are enticed to provide their contact info, and BAM—you have another lead in the hopper.
However, they differ from Market Leader by providing more landing page and lead magnet customization, as well as providing specialized follow-up tools like their automated text concierge to help you better convert your leads to clients.
Since BoldLeads ads are created specifically for you and your business, the leads you get are yours and yours alone, unlike other lead gen companies that will create generic ads and then divvy up the leads among subscribed agents.
[Related resource: The Close Deep Dive BoldLeads Review]
Best Real Estate Lead Generation Company for Prospecting Leads: REDX
Prices starting at $40 / month
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How REDX Generates Real Estate Leads
Rather than creating a system where you wait for leads to come to you (like all the other providers on our list), REDX flips the script with an outbound real estate lead generation system. REDX users choose from lead types like Expired Listings, FSBOs, and Preforeclosures (just to name a few), and REDX provides contact information for you to reach out and start real estate conversations.
With a constantly updated system, you’ve always got an up-to-date list of the leads in your area, and you decide how much time you want to spend reaching out, following up, and converting them to clients.
[Related resource: The Close Deep Dive REDX Review]
Best Lead Generation Company for Team-distributed Leads: Real Geeks
Prices starting at $299 / month
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How Real Geeks Generates Real Estate Leads
Real Geeks follows the well-trodden path of BoldLeads and Market Leader on their initial lead generation approach: they strategically place your ads on sites like Google, Facebook, and Instagram that drive traffic to landing pages designed to convert your prospects into leads.
However, Real Geeks is different in that the landing pages that your prospects arrive at are ultra-personalized and customizable for you and your business. And once you actually capture leads, Real Geeks gives you some pretty sophisticated tools to distribute them across your organization, making it a great option for teams and brokerages.
[Related resource: The Close Deep Dive Real Geeks Review]
Best Lead Generation Company for Buyer Leads: Zillow Premier Agent
Prices starting at $250 / month
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How Zillow Premier Agent Generates Real Estate Leads
Zillow harnesses its 229 million unique monthly visitors to put real estate agents directly in front of active home shoppers in their market. Zillow sells display advertising for Premier Agents next to listings in specific ZIP codes, the price of which varies depending on the number of agents competing for space and the median sold price of a home in that market.
Zillow leads are either transferred to the Zillow CRM or into whatever CRM you’re using (they are famously collaborative and can connect to just about any platform). Then, you take over with outreach, nurturing, and eventual conversion. Pricing starts at $250 per month for most markets.
Zillow’s lead generation approach is unique in that they rely only on ads on their platform, which is great because you know that buyer intent on Zillow is high compared to places like Facebook and Google. On the other hand, Zillow’s system doesn’t prevent leads from clicking on multiple agents, so your leads aren’t necessarily exclusive to you.
[Related resource: The Close Deep Dive Zillow Premier Agent Review]
Get Started With Zillow Premier Agent
Best Lead Generation Company for Seller Leads: SmartZip
Prices starting at $400-$500 / month
SmartZip Pros | SmartZip Cons |
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How SmartZip Generates Real Estate Leads
SmartZip uses sophisticated algorithms that take into account hundreds of demographic, geographic, and consumer behavior data points to predict which homeowners in a particular market are the most likely to consider selling their home in the next 12 to 18 months. SmartZip then gathers contact information for these potential sellers and packages it for real estate professionals.
Their predictive analytics approach is an outbound marketing strategy (similar to REDX’s), since it’s up to you to make the calls, send the direct mail, and connect with the leads on your SmartZip list. This format makes SmartZip more labor-intensive than the inbound strategies of Market Leader, BoldLeads, Real Geeks, and Zillow.
But, unlike REDX, SmartZip allows you to focus your marketing efforts (and budget) on only the most likely sellers in your market, making the bang for your buck much bigger. Pricing depends on your market, but starts at about $400 to $500 per month.
[Related resource: The Close Deep Dive SmartZip Review]
Real Estate Lead Generation Companies FAQs
Before diving into paid real estate lead generation, take a look at some of our readers’ most frequently asked questions. If there’s something we haven’t covered here, please leave your question in the comments section.
Do any real estate brokerages provide leads?
Yes, there are some brokerages that will provide you with leads, but that is a decision made on an office-by-office basis. Remember though, those leads aren’t free (even if you don’t pay anything upfront for them). Offices that provide real estate leads for agents often require higher splits and caps, as well as monthly desk fees. Check out our article about the Best Real Estate Companies to Work For to learn more.
How do most real estate agents get leads?
From lots of different places. Most (successful) real estate agents diversify their lead generation so that their business doesn’t live or die by a single source. Paid lead generation, referrals and repeat business, and organic social marketing are some great examples of where real estate agents get leads.
[Read more: How to Create a Custom Real Estate Lead Generation Plan (+ Template)]
Is there a lead generation source with no upfront cost?
Yes, there are lead generation companies that offer the option to pay only for the leads that close, but they aren’t what we call traditional lead gen options. These are more akin to referral companies, since the leads they offer usually cost a percentage of your commission instead of a flat fee. Zillow actually offers leads like this to limited markets using their program called Zillow Flex, but other options include OpCity, Referral Exchange, and Agent Harvest.
Are paid lead generation companies worth it?
If you can get a high enough return on your investment, real estate lead generation companies are absolutely worth it. Think about it: if someone told you that you could earn $15,000 in commission by writing a $5,000 check, you’d do it, right? Assuming the number of hours you’d need to work wouldn’t be worth more than $10,000, that would be a great exchange.
What’s a good price per real estate lead?
In most markets, the max price a real estate agent should be comfortable spending per lead is $200. I know, that seems high, but do a little mental math with me, and I’ll show you it’s not. Let’s say you get 10 leads a week from Market Leader, and one of them turns into a client. Now, let’s assume you’re converting 75% of those clients into sales. This means that you’re closing three transactions every month as a result of 40 total leads.
For 40 leads a month, you’re paying $8,000 (40 x $200), which seems like too much, until you remember that the typical home is selling for over $300,000. At a 3% commission, those three sales are grossing you $27,000 in commission income, netting you $19,000 before splits and taxes.
Of course, this price changes based on your conversion rates, based on the typical sale price of a home in your market, and based on your typical commission, but for most realtors, $200 per lead is a great place to start.
A Note on Methodology
As a part of this buyer’s guide, I reviewed dozens of paid real estate lead generation companies and pinpointed the very best options for our readers based on each company’s strategy and approach, price, usability, scalability, service, support, and more.
As lead generation companies continue to improve their processes and increase their efficiency, I’ll continue to update this guide and review new and existing lead gen companies to reflect the best available options for realtors.
Your Turn
Did we miss a real estate lead generation company you want more information on? Comment below to suggest new additions to this list.
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