How To Get More Listings: 13 Proven Ways

Want to get more listings? I remember working with a TON of home buyers my first year as a real estate agent. It’s fairly common for new agents to be buyer-heavy.

If my memory serves me well, my ratio of buyers to sellers was like 65-35, respectively. Meaning, 65 percent of my transactions were with home buyers and only 35 percent of my first-year transactions were listings.

Most of the listings I got in my first year were a byproduct of working with buyers.

Perhaps this is where you find yourself. Maybe you’re more balanced at 50-50. Either way, you want to get more listings.

Every agent does. They’re coveted. Real estate listings are like the holy grail.

In this post, we’re talking about why real estate agents need to focus on getting more listings and we’re sharing 13 ways to get more listings.

Perhaps with these methods you can jump off the hamster wheel and have more control over your real estate career — all while earning more.

Why Focus On Getting More Listings?

My itch for getting more listings started when I read Gary Keller’s “Millionaire Real Estate Agent”. I recommend that EVERY real estate agent takes the time to read this book.

You will find some timeless principles that transcend any real estate market at any time.

One such principle is focusing on listings. Keller advocates that all real estate agents — at least those who want to be millionaire real estate agents — should focus all of their efforts on getting listings. The buyers that these kinds of agents work with come as a byproduct of working with sellers.

There are three reasons every agent needs to make getting listings a top-priority.

• Requires less time per transaction
• You earn more
• It scales

Less Time Spent

Have you ever tracked the amount of time it takes to work with a home buyer versus the time required to work with a seller?

I have. Listings often require half or a third of the time, especially in this current real estate market.

Said another way, working with home buyers takes two to three times longer. So, if you would spend 10 hours on a listing, then you can expect to spend 20 to 30 hours on a home buyer.

Think back to your last buyer and seller transactions… Does this hold true for you? If you’re not certain, I’d encourage you to start tracking the time you spend on each transaction.

I’m willing to bet that you will find listings take less time.

And yet, sadly, both sides of the transaction (buyer’s agent and listing agent) make the same three percent commission.

That brings me to the next point: earn more with listings.

Earn More With Listings

There are two ways listings earn more. First, your dollar per hour rate is higher since listings often require less time to get to the closing table.

Let’s look at an example.

At an average median home value of $260,000 with a 6 percent commission where the buyer’s agent and seller’s agent have a 70-30 split, the dollar per hour rate of a list agent is $540.60. The dollar per hour rate of the buyer’s agent is only $182.

Wow! Talk about an earnings difference.

The second way listings help agents earn more is because an agent can complete more transactions per work week, month, and year.

Imagine a buyer’s agent does 20 transactions per year at the median home value, resulting in a total earnings of $109,200. The list agent, on the other hand, sells 40 sides. Their earnings are $218,400 for the year.

Listings earn more. It’s just a fact.

Listings Scale

If you’re looking to build a real estate team or a profitable brokerage, then you need to focus on getting more listings. The reality is that listings scale.

This is a fancy way of saying that listings allow us to grow our business. We can go from a solo real estate agent to a team of over 50 real estate agents when we find a profitable marketing channel that generates real estate leads on a regular basis.

Since listings provide more earnings and less time working on the transaction, it’s easy to plug people into the system at reasonable market wages, like commissions, hourly pay, or salary.

Listings are like rocket fuel. They take your business (the rocket) to new heights.

#1: Send Letters To Those In Probate

The best strategy for getting more listings is to market to those who need to sell. There are certain markets that have homes they need to list. One such market is the probate market.

When someone passes away, their home will likely pass through probate. It could be a simple process if a Will was left. Or, it could be a long, drawn out process if there was no Will and there are disputes between heirs or beneficiaries.

Either way, a large percentage of homes in an estate are sold to satisfy creditors or to divide up the equity among the beneficiaries and heirs.

You can find these leads from a lead provider like All The Leads or go to the county yourself and dig up contact information.

It’s best to handle these leads with compassion and care. You’re reaching people at a difficult time. Handle these leads with care and focus on providing massive value before selling.

Focus on helping them with services they are likely to need — junk removal, estate sale companies, and more. Don’t ONLY sell your real estate services.

Be a resource to help them through probate. Not just a real estate agent. You might wonder, do you need a probate certification to work with this market? Probably not.

#2: Use Facebook Ads For Move Up Buyers

Another market to target are move-up buyers. In this case, these buyers have a house they need to sell AND a home they need to buy. Two transactions; one customer.

There are various ways to try to target these leads. For example, you can launch Facebook ads or post in Facebook groups with messages that speak directly to this kind of market.

Here is a Facebook ad I ran once. I talk about the pain of stepping on toys and legos in the home. When a home is too small, it can seem like there is a toy store explosion in your home.

Before getting started with Facebook Ads, consider posting in Facebook Groups or on your page. It’s easy to sink a lot of money into Facebook and not get any results if you don’t know what you’re doing.

#3: Partner With A Referral Service

A low risk method for getting more listings, especially if you live in a large metropolitan area (think Detroit, Denver, Dallas, etc), is to partner with a referral service company like UpNest, HomeLight, or Effective Agent.

These platforms offer an opportunity to get listings in exchange for a referral fee that is paid at the time of closing. Referral fees range by platform and home values. Generally, they are between 25 and 35 percent.

As far as which platform is best really depends on your market. It’s going to vary based on which market these companies are specifically targeting and where they are spending their advertising dollars.

Say for example, HomeLight was investing their advertising dollars in Houston. They focus a lot of their PPC and marketing budget to being the dominant website in Houston. They succeed in beating out the competition and drive 80 percent of the traffic. If you’re a Houston real estate agent, then it makes sense to focus all of your efforts on this platform.

This is an illustrative example. I’m not saying HomeLight dominates the Houston market.

I recommend that you sign up for multiple platforms and see which one sends you the most leads. Some of these platforms are competitive so make sure you have a killer real estate bio, effective sales scripts, and fast follow-up process.

#4: Market To Vacant Homes

Another possible market to target is vacant homes. Through effective sales letters and sales calls, you can reach those you might be interested in selling their vacant home.

Now, understand this is a diverse market. There are a lot of reasons someone owns a home and it’s sitting vacant. Many real estate agents assume these homeowners are investors.

That’s not necessarily true.

For example, a home might be vacant because the owner had to relocate for work. It’s possible the home was inherited after a parent passed away. Rather than selling the home during probate, the heirs or beneficiaries decided to hold onto the home.

Keep this in mind when picking your sales scripts and the marketing you’re sending to these kinds of leads. You need it to be generic, but not too generic that you don’t speak to the market’s pain points.

#5: Craft A Killer Real Estate Bio

There is a certain percentage of home sellers who go online and look for a real estate agent. They use platforms like Zillow’s “Find an Agent” tool.

If a potential listing stumbles on your real estate bio, you want to be able to convince them to reach out to you. You have to beat out all of the other real estate agents in your area.

A great way to do this is by crafting a killer real estate bio.

My Zillow and Realtor profiles have helped me generate over $100,000 in gross commission income — from lead conversion to organic leads reaching out and requesting to work with me.

#6: Get Your Zillow (or Realtor) Profile Ranked

Since home sellers are looking online for real estate agents, it pays to get your agent profile ranked in the various search directories.

For example, I’m fourth on Realtor.com as a “Most Recommended” agent.

Each platform has their own ranking factors, but they are based on three common factors:

• Location
• Sales Activity
• Reviews or Recommendations

Be sure your location settings are properly set on the various platforms. Next, focus on getting real estate client reviews. As you grow in reviews and recommendations, your profile will rank — allowing you to drive organic listings.

These are home sellers reaching out to you, asking you to list their home.

When it comes to sales activity, you can’t really control this. You have to get out there and list homes, sell homes, close transactions, etc.

But, you can focus on driving more reviews and recommendations to give yourself a shot at ranking.

#7: Ask For Listing Referrals Specifically

Are you asking for referrals in your real estate business? I imagine you are, but are you specifically asking for listing referrals?

Few real estate agents are specific enough in their referral requests. This hurts their results.

Most real estate agents make a general request for a referral or, worse, are passive. They say something like, “Know anyone looking to buy or sell? I am happy to help.”

For a second, imagine being on the receiving end. When questions are broad, it’s hard for us to think of the name of someone who could use a real estate agent.

Instead, I recommend that you get specific in your request.

Say something like, “Do you know anybody who might need to sell their home in the next three months, like someone relocating for work, having another child, or is getting married?”

These are life events and moments that might cause someone to sell.

By being specific, it’s much easier to think about someone who may need real estate services.

Make sure your specific referral request is everywhere – your email newsletter, in your conversations with clients, and more.

#8: Open House Door Knocking

Sometimes the best way to get more listings is the old-school, traditional methods, such as door knocking. I love door knocking when it’s coupled with open houses.

It gives you something to talk about with the homeowner. Plus, since most open houses are on the weekend, you increase the odds that a homeowner is home.

Before the open house starts you can go around the neighborhood and knock on their doors. When a homeowner answers the door, invite them to the open house.

Here’s a brief script: “Hi, I’m Alex. I’m holding an open house at [address] at [time]. Just wanted to pop by and invite you over. Feel free to come look around and see inside the home. Might give you an idea of what your home can sell for.”

This is usually enough for people to engage in a conversation about selling their home if they’ve been thinking about it. Those who aren’t interested will just thank you and try to shove you off their porch.

And, that’s okay.

#9: Home Value Ads

I see a lot of home value ads on Facebook. It’s a great way to get leads at a low cost. Facebook ads that are about “getting your home’s value” often have low lead costs.

One campaign I have been wanting to try, but haven’t, yet, is the “Zactimate”. The idea is to point out that the Zestimate is often inaccurate. Instead, get the Zactimate of your house.

If you borrow the idea on Facebook, reach out to me and let me know if you have any success with it.

#10: Start A Real Estate Blog

This is definitely a long-term strategy and not one that I would focus on right out of the gate. Instead, I would make sure you’re executing on many of the fundamentals before doing something like this.

However, through a blog and content you can build up SEO value to get your website rank. On top of that, you can share your expertise and establish yourself as a credible expert in the real estate field.

One caveat that is difficult – that’s getting the right kind of traffic and ranking locally. There’s limited value in ranking an article and having a web visitor in California stumble on your site.

Unless you have a deep referral network, it’s hard to monetize this kind of traffic.

#11: Create YouTube or Facebook Videos

Along the same lines of starting a blog, video content is a great way to establish authority. It’s important to understand that promotion is just as important — if not MORE important than the actual content production itself.

There are endless opportunities when it comes to content creation. Follow a regular content creation schedule and publish on a regular basis. A one off video is going to have limited results, if you’re lucky to even get any.

Publish weekly if possible and have fun with it. Don’t worry about production quality at first. Improve as you go and learn more.

Start by answering the most common questions your customers ask. Some highly relevant topics include:

• How much does it cost to list a home?
• Will rising interest rates make it harder to sell my home?
• How fast are homes selling in the various cities?

Focus your content on selling and listing a home. Remember, the goal is to drive more listings.

#12: Foreclosure or Pre-Foreclosures

With rising interest rates and the Covid pandemic, some real estate experts believe that there is going to be a wave of foreclosures and pre-foreclosures. I’m not sure I one-hundred percent believe this.

But, it’s worth thinking about and exploring. It’s great if you can get in before the home goes into foreclosure.

People likely have enough equity in their home at this time, they just might have issues making the monthly payments. Unlike during the recession, there were a lot of short sales.

In this case, I don’t think there will be a lot of short sales. Instead, home owners may sell their home to avoid foreclosure or because they feel behind on the deferral payments during Covid.

#13: Partner With Investors

Investors move a lot of houses. In this market, there are a lot of investors who are looking to dispose of their real estate. They are selling it and moving the money elsewhere.

You can partner with investors to handle their rental units or if they pursue a fix-and-flip method. Of course, it’s common for investors to look for discounts because of the volume they transact.

It’s worth considering. Just don’t go too low.

Final Words On How To Get More Listings

Your network is always going to be the best place to get more listings. If you’re looking to add more listings, then look at leveraging one of these 13 methods.

When you’re just starting out, focus on low-cost methods for generating leads. There are a lot of companies out there which promise to deliver listing appointments to you. They’re often expensive and have high upfront fees.

Be cautious when it comes to spending a ton of money. Most real estate agents fail because they have too much money going out and not enough coming in.

Test different methods. See what works for you and what works for your market.