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What Are Real Estate Landing Pages? 

A real estate landing page is a dedicated webpage for your business designed to capture leads by providing value in exchange for contact information. It’s different from a general real estate website because it focuses on prompting visitors to act, such as signing up for a newsletter, requesting a home valuation, or searching for properties. 

Real estate landing pages are a vital part of your digital marketing strategy because they insert leads at the top of the funnel, hoping to carry them toward taking action, culminating in a sale.

Remember that the realtor landing page is separate from your personal website or business homepage. It is a single page specifically made to capture leads and prompt visitors to act in a certain way, whereas your real estate website is built to house multiple pages with broader information.

Top Real Estate Landing Page Examples (+ Providers)

Before we get into how to create your landing page, you need to see some examples to understand what they should look like and get inspiration for your own. Creating real estate landing pages that convert requires a blend of art and science. You want to balance engaging visuals with strategic content and technical back-end optimization. 

Each example below is from a reputable landing page provider, so if you like one of the designs, check out the provider to use their services to create your landing page.

Example 1: Agent Image

This realtor landing page from Sharona Alperin was created with Agent Image. She has a clear call to action (CTA) reading, “Let’s connect – Don’t miss a beat,” which stands out against the rest of the page in capital bold letters. Sharona also tells the visitor what you’re exchanging for your contact information: market updates, restaurant picks, and home inspiration, all enticing items for a buyer or seller. Agent Image specializes in full agent websites, so you can use their services to complete an online makeover. They also offer IDX and CRM integrations to make sure listings are seen, and leads are captured.

Example 2: AgentFire

Using a home valuation page is a great way to snag seller leads at the beginning stages of the selling process. AgentFire offers multiple landing page options that are engaging and easy to set up. A cool feature from AgentFire is that you can set up realtor landing pages to provide an instant valuation, meaning visitors get a result immediately. However, those are based on algorithms. If you’d like, you can also set the system up to notify you when visitors provide their information and then create a custom comparative market analysis.

Example 3: iNCOM

This example from iNCOM entices clients with exclusive “VIP Platinum Access” to brand new condos in exchange for their contact information. This type of landing page is great for realtors who specialize in niches, particularly condo sales. Other iNCOM landing page features include mobile-optimized designs, higher conversion and click-through rates, and lifetime support from the iNCOM team.

Example 4: Placester

To be a functional landing page, it’s important to provide your visitors with value, like the above example made by Placester for Atoka Properties. In exchange for contact information, visitors will receive a guide to homebuying, which will help them in their journey and encourage them to work with the people who created it—and that’s the way to get people into the sales funnel! Placester has other amazing landing page designs and a Do It For Me lead generation website system where professional designers will create your online pages and maintain your site.

Example 5: Easy Agent PRO

This simple yet effective landing page from Easy Agent PRO hits visitors with a stunning visual and a quick CTA of “Get the newsletter.” While minimalist, it appeals to the foundations of a successful landing page to bring buyer and seller candidates to the beginning of the sales funnel. And don’t forget, with Easy Agent PRO, you can create an unlimited number of neighborhood sites. This feature helps establish your credibility and improves your website rank in the top results for search engine optimization (SEO).

How to Create a Strong Real Estate Landing Page

Now that you have a better understanding of what a landing page is and ideas of what you want yours to look like, let’s talk about how to create a real estate landing page for yourself. To see success with your real estate agent landing page, you’ll need to offer something of immediate value to your visitors in a super-easy process. All they’ll have to do is provide their contact information to get your value-add item. 

Strong Headline 

The headline is the first thing visitors will see on your landing page. It should be simple, direct, and short. It is one or two concise sentences (see what I’m doing here?). The font and colors should stand out from the page and be exceptionally legible. The goal is for visitors to know what you are offering and be enticed to click on that offer. That way, you’ll have generated a lead for yourself. 

Here are some examples: 

• Join Our Newsletters
• How Much Is Your Home Worth? 
• Get Our Free Homebuying Guide
• Find a Home You Love 
• Sell Your Home Fast 

Pro tip: When you’re writing your headlines and landing page copy, make sure to pay attention to the words you’re writing. The words should appeal to the audience that you intend to capture by using proper keywords and search engine optimization (SEO) tactics.

Call to Action

A call to action (CTA) is a statement and typically a button on your page that directs visitors to the item you’re offering. Similar to the headline, it should be kept short, have bold colors, and give an obvious directive to your landing page visitor. When people click this link, they will be prompted to complete a lead capture form. Choose from some of these CTAs: 

• Get in touch 
• Get an estimate
• Sign up today 
• Get my free offer
• Sell with us 
• Send me a newsletter 
• Schedule a tour

Lead Capture Form 

Everything you’ve done so far has led to your lead capture form. This is the most important piece of the landing page real estate puzzle because it moves website visitors into your sales funnel. The form should contain all the pertinent information you need to contact the person on the other side of the screen. This includes someone’s name, email address, and phone number. However, you can also include more options to learn about your visitors. 

• Radio buttons asking someone is a buyer or seller
• Message box to add a personal question
• Drop-down with a preferred method of communication (email, phone, text, etc.) 
• Checkboxes asking how far they are in their home search or sale (Just started, saw a few houses, have been working with an agent, lost one offer, etc.)

Keep in mind that you want the form on your real estate landing pages to be as easy as possible so that visitors aren’t deterred from completing it. According to Email Vendor Selection, the landing page conversion rate is 10% when you ask for three pieces of information. Even though it’s tempting to include all of the above information in your form, be selective and pick only what is necessary to move your leads forward in this process. 

Value Proposition

While your ultimate goal is to snag contact information, you must provide value to website visitors in exchange. This value proposition can be anything from e-books to free consultations. Still, it has to work in the favor of your target audience, whether they’re buyers, sellers, investors, renters, etc. Here are some ideas: 

• Free home valuation or comparative market analysis
• E-book about the homebuying or selling process, home staging tips, templates for investors, etc. 
• Listings and property information 
• Free marketing materials like flyers and brochures 
• Virtual meet-and-greet

No matter which you choose, it has to be enticing enough for visitors to willingly give up their information (with the assumption you will use it to contact them). 

High-quality Images 

Your visuals are crucial because you only have a few seconds to grab a visitor’s attention. For a real estate landing page, high-quality images representing the neighborhood, the type of properties, or your marketing location could be the difference between a visitor and a lead. These images should capture the area’s essence—appeal to your ideal client and help them create an emotional connection that encourages them to engage with your landing page.

Mobile Experience 

Optimizing your landing page for mobile users is non-negotiable. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), 76% of homebuyers used a mobile or tablet search device in their home search. With such a large portion of web traffic coming from mobile users, your landing page needs to focus on two essential things: 1) it should load quickly, and 2) your landing page should look great on all screen sizes. Before publishing your site, preview the mobile experience and ensure it’s easy to navigate and looks amazing. 

A/B Testing

A/B testing is an invaluable way to improve the performance of your landing page over time.

To do this, experiment with different elements, change the number of fields in your lead capture form, and continually tweak the performance of your CTA buttons. Does a red button or a green button do better? How about filling out three forms vs four? Perform the tests and take the data to improve your landing pages through ongoing optimization.

FAQs

Are landing pages for real estate still a thing?

Do I need a professional web designer to set up a landing page?

How much should a landing page cost?

What is a squeeze page in real estate?

How do I drive traffic to my landing page?

Bringing It All Together

Have you succeeded with a real estate lead generation strategy that includes landing pages? Do you have a genius strategy for converting traffic into clients? Still have questions about landing pages? Let us know in the comment section below.

The post Real Estate Landing Pages: 5 Stunning Examples & Tips appeared first on The Close.

Download Your Real Estate Marketing Plan Template

1. Research & Understand Your Market

You need to understand your market to effectively fill in your real estate marketing plan template for your new business. You must learn how fast homes sell in your territory, how long it takes, and who’s buying homes in your area. Then, you’ll better understand how to reach your target market. 

Research your local community to create real estate marketing plans by starting with your local MLS. You have access to your community’s data, so dive in and start researching your target market. Utilize other sources, like Realtors Property Resource (RPR), realtor.com, Homes.com, and even Zillow, to learn as much as possible about your area. 

During the research phase, your goal is to: 

• Narrow down your geographic farm area: This will tell you where you should focus your business, the clientele you’ll be marketing to, and what methods you should utilize to reach your target audience.
• Know your numbers (days on market (DOM) rate, absorption rates, median price, etc.): This will give you what homes are selling, how fast, and for how much. Knowing these numbers lets you effectively discuss your market with prospects.
• Understand your demographics: Learn who lives in your area to figure out how to talk to your prospects, appeal to their interests, and make valuable connections to prospects considering purchasing in your market.
• Conduct market analysis of your specific neighborhoods: Learn the median price point, size, square footage, and the local amenities of each neighborhood you want to target to get a leg up on the competition in each area. When you become the expert, you’ll stand out to your target market.

2. Uncover Your Competition

Next, learn who your competitors are in your chosen market. Audit those agents sending flyers, using social media in your city, investing in signs, bus benches, billboards, and anything else you see in your community. Study who they are and how they’re marketing themselves. If you see a gap—for example, only a few agents spend money on social media in your area—maybe that’s an opportunity for you to step up and take it over. 

You can learn a lot from your competitors. The most successful ones have nailed their communications with their audience. But they may also be targeting a different audience from you. So, just because it works for them doesn’t necessarily mean it will also work for you. You have to know your audience and their preferences. 

3. Create Your Mission, Vision & Values Statement

I know it sounds corny. But your mission, vision, and values (MVV) statement outlines where you want your real estate business to be in the future, how you’ll get there, and the values that will drive you. Plus, it will help you clearly articulate your business philosophy, differentiate yourself in a competitive market, and build a strong and trustworthy brand that resonates with your ideal clients. 

Here’s how to create your mission, vision, and values statement.

Mission: To write your mission statement, ask yourself: Why did you get into real estate? What gets you out of bed every morning to help people buy and sell their real estate assets? Write out your answers to those questions in a way that makes a statement. That’s your mission statement.

Ex. My mission is to work with military movers relocating to my area and make their move as smooth as possible. I understand their struggles and want to do for them what I wish someone had done for me.

Vision: Craft your vision statement with a specific goal and time to accomplish it. Set your goal and give yourself a deadline.

Ex. I will become the top-producing agent in my ZIP code by the end of my third year in real estate. Our team will have the highest customer rating by the end of 2025.

Values: Your values are the core of your real estate brand. What values do you believe are important to you and your business? Some examples of values include:

• Honesty
• Transparency
• Integrity
• Client-focused
• Professional
• Accountability
• Innovation
• Collaborative
• Adaptability
• Respect
• Service-oriented
• Excellence
• Trustworthiness
• Commitment

Now that you have all the elements to create your mission, vision, and values, print them and post them in your office so you can visualize them daily. These statements will drive every decision you make in your business. 

4. Discover Your Ideal Client 

Now that you’ve learned your market and developed your MVV, it’s time to develop your client personas for buyers and sellers. If you want to build a brand that attracts your ideal clients, you need to understand who they are, their pain points, their goals, and the obstacles they face.

Start by gathering as much data as possible about your geographic real estate farm area’s potential buyers and sellers. Here are some data points to consider: 

• Age
• Income
• Family size
• Own or rent? How long?
• Personal buying/selling history 
• Tech savviness
• Education level
• Values
• Hobbies
• Interests

Here are a few resources you can use to gather data to build your buyer persona:

I like to give each of my personas a little backstory, a name, and a face. I go to a royalty-free photo site, like Unsplash or Pexels, and I put in the description of the person I’m looking for. When I find one that I think fits, I download and print it. I give the person a name and keep that picture near me while working on my marketing. I make sure I’m directing any content I create to that person. That’s my avatar. Grab our worksheet to help identify your ideal client by answering a few questions.

If you’ve sold any homes, your ideal client most likely lives in your current sphere of influence. You can use polls and questions in your social media to stay engaged with your network and learn more about how your sphere of influence (SOI) sees you. Use social media templates from a company like Coffee & Contracts to gain the insights you need to build a successful real estate marketing plan. With its tools, you can get valuable insights from your people, increase engagement, and create marketing content more easily. Who doesn’t love an easy button?

5. Get Clear on Your USP

Your unique selling proposition (USP) makes you different from everyone else. Know who you are, what you stand for, and who you serve. Then, you can decipher how you will stand out from your competitors. 

You’ve already done the work to learn who your target audience is and who your competitors are. Let’s start researching internally to find the piece that completes the puzzle.

To identify your USP, conduct a SWOT analysis on yourself, considering your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Use a table format for clarity, and seek feedback from friends, family, colleagues, and past clients if you’re unsure.

After you’ve completed your SWOT analysis, you will identify what makes you unique. What can you provide that no one else can? Here are some examples: 

Ex: Leveraging over 20 years of unmatched local expertise to navigate the luxury market, ensuring every client achieves their real estate dreams with unparalleled personal service and insider knowledge.

Ex: Bringing fresh energy and cutting-edge digital marketing strategies to the real estate market, I empower first-time homebuyers to navigate the buying process with confidence and ease.

6. Learn Different Marketing Strategies for Real Estate

Your marketing plan for real estate is a playground. There are many options for agents to show off their expertise, adaptability, and knowledge of the real estate market. That said, a smart marketing strategy utilizes a handful of marketing avenues with focus and intention. Choose the channels that make the most sense for you and your target market.

Digital Marketing

• Create your online profiles that allow you to be found online. Don’t overlook creating your Google Business Profile. Set up a system to ask clients to give you 5-star reviews.
• Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn allow you to interact with your clients, sphere of influence, and future clients with engaging content.
• Email marketing is still one of the most efficient ways to connect with your database. Time spent building and nurturing your email list is time well spent.
• Most agents should have a real estate website that’s search engine optimized (SEO). The first thing your potential clients will do is look for you online. Make sure they can find your beautifully designed website that gives them more information about who you are and who you serve. Don’t DIY your site—it’s way too important. Trust one of the expert real estate website builders, like Agent Fire, to design your website. They will ensure you’re SEO-ready with an elegant, professional site that shows off your sense of style and polish.

Traditional Marketing

• Direct email marketing campaigns can be an excellent and cost-effective way to reach your specific neighborhoods with your marketing message.
• Real estate print advertising includes magazines (especially for luxury markets), flyers, and brochures for your listings and brokerage. 
• Networking events and experiential marketing, combined with open houses are amazing ways to stay connected in person with your community.

Emerging Trends

• Virtual reality tours and augmented reality technologies can expand your reach and put you at the forefront of certain demographics.
• Influencer collaborations are awesome for cross-pollinating databases and expanding your connections. Use influencers to grow your email list fast.

7. Formulate a Budget for Your Marketing Plan

When it comes to deciding how much money to allocate to each marketing channel, there are no hard and fast rules. In fact, it will mostly depend on who your target audience is, where they are showing up, and what marketing avenue you feel most comfortable with. 

The best thing to do is settle on some numbers to get started. Then, once you’ve put your plan into action, return to it in a few months and analyze your results. The general rule of thumb is to set aside around 10% of your income each month to spend on your marketing.

When considering your budget, especially if you’re newer to the biz, utilize some or all of these cost-saving strategies to keep more money in your pocket while getting the maximum exposure for your brand and your real estate business.

Leverage Organic Social Media Traffic

• Create and share engaging content that gives value to your audience
• Lean into video content, which already gets higher engagement
• Mix it up with personal vs real estate content

Build a Referral Network

• Encourage your clients to refer you to their friends and colleagues
• Set up an automated system to ask for 5-star reviews from your past clients
• Network with local businesses, including lenders, home inspectors, contractors, and more, to refer business to each other

Optimize Your Website

• Make sure your website is searchable when your future clients are online
• Fill out your Google My Business listing with relevant real estate keywords
• Keep your blog filled with SEO-friendly keywords that drive traffic to your website

Email Marketing 

• Email is still an amazing way to reach your database
• Capture emails from your website visitors (with permission) and keep them updated with valuable content
• Use your customer relationship manager (CRM) or an email marketing platform like Mailchimp to segment your audience. Personalize your emails so your recipients only receive relevant emails from you.

Experiential Marketing

• Host free homebuyers or real estate investor workshops for minimal marketing spend
• Sponsor local events, school sports clubs, or community projects for brand visibility 
• Partner with local businesses to cut costs for networking or client appreciation events

8. Set Your Goals & Timeline

Dreams become goals when you write them down. So, let’s get started building your dream business by writing down those goals and giving them deadlines. 

Start with your short-term goals.

• Aim high for your annual goal. How much do you want to make in gross commission income (GCI) by the end of the year? What is your average commission per home sold? Figure out how many transactions you’ll need to close to reach your goal. 
• Set your monthly and quarterly goals. Break your annual goals down by quarter and month. Reverse-engineer your goals to understand what it will take to reach them. Turn those action steps into your goals.
• Plan out your activity for the week. Reverse-engineer the results you want to achieve and draft action steps to help you achieve them. Ex. If you want to schedule two to three listing appointments each week and know that for every 20 phone calls you make, you will set one appointment, set a schedule to make the number of calls it will take to reach your goal of two to three listing appointments.
• Plan out your perfect day. Break up your day into blocks dedicated to completing certain tasks. Plan out how many phone calls you will make daily, how many emails you will send, etc. Your success lies in the details you set and implement to create your roadmap to get there.

Next, set long-term goals.

• What is your five-year plan? Where would you like your real estate business to be within the first five years? Will you hit the seven-figure mark? Build your team? Become a trainer? Buy that fancy car you’ve always dreamed of? What does success look like for you? 
• What is your 10-year plan? Look farther down the road, and what do you want to accomplish in your real estate business? Will you become a broker? Open your own brokerage? Become a national trainer? Buy a new home for you and your family? Invest in your own real estate assets? The world is your oyster, so go as big as you can dream. I love creating vision boards each year instead of setting resolutions. It’s a much more visual representation of the dreams you’re working toward.

Now, track your progress.

• Set up a system. There are tons of tools you can use to track your progress on your goals. Use the metrics in the goals to tally, mark off, check, and highlight the tasks you completed. I use Notion for my personal goal tracking, but there are others like Trello, Goalsetter, Asana, and so many others. Much of your real estate tracking can be done within your CRM. Track your transactions, phone calls, emails, and your GCI right in the dashboard of most of the top real estate CRMs, like Follow Up Boss, Wise Agent, LionDesk, and others.
• Assess and adjust. It’s easy to get off-track, but don’t be too hard on yourself. We’re all human, and sometimes life gets in the way of our best intentions. Analyze where you are. Find entry points where you can make improvements and get yourself back on track. The truth is even if you don’t hit your goals every week, as long as you don’t stop and you keep moving forward, you’ll find success in your real estate business.

9. Create a Marketing Calendar 

Nothing gets done unless you plan it. So in this section, we’ll talk about building your marketing calendar. It may sound intimidating to plan your content in advance, but you don’t have to do it all in one sitting. You can do it monthly, quarterly, or annually. I don’t recommend doing it weekly because it’s more overwhelming to do it that way than to sit down a few times per year and knock it all out at once. 

Sit down with a blank calendar and start mapping out your content. You can download our marketing calendar here to get a head start. We’ve even taken the liberty of filling in some fun holidays for you to plan content around, along with a few more ideas.

Download Real Estate Marketing Calendar

Decide on what content will be most valuable to your target audience. You’ve already decided on what channels you’re going to use, so decide when will be the best time to deploy each of your media. For social media, you can plan out your posts and then create them yourself in Canva. Or you can use a platform like Coffee & Contracts to streamline your content creation. Once you’ve laid out your content, you can schedule it all at once using tools in Coffee & Contracts, Canva, or Meta Business (for Facebook and Instagram). 

For your other content, like your print marketing campaigns, use a service like ProspectsPLUS! to set up postcards, pick your territory, and schedule your deliveries. I love creating my postcards in Canva, using either their templates or templates I find on Etsy, uploading them into PostcardsPLUS!, and sending them out to my geographic farm. 

Most of your branding and real estate marketing plan can be scheduled in advance. For other parts of your marketing, you’ll need to tackle them as they are needed, like when you get a new listing. When you get a listing, you’ll want to maximize its impact by sending postcards, Just Listed and Just Sold, plus spending the extra money on a virtual tour and possibly, if available, some augmented reality to really add punch. 

10. Implement Your Marketing Plan

Now you have your calendar in place. You’ve set aside how much you’ll spend on your branding and marketing. It’s time to launch your marketing plan. 

• Set aside some time to build out your social media content. 
• Set up any print advertising you have on your real estate marketing plan and get everything ready to deploy. 
• Make sure you have your landing pages set up so you can capture leads as they come in. 
• Don’t forget to automate responses to leads once they are entered into your CRM. 
• Once everything is up and running, check to make sure everything is running smoothly and make any corrections necessary.

Congratulations! Your real estate marketing plan is up and running. Now you just need to monitor your progress and make adjustments when needed. Don’t panic if you don’t see a lot of leads come in initially. It takes time to develop that know, like, and trust factor. But you can have faith in the compound effect. The more people who see you, your posts, and your marketing materials, the more they will feel like they know you. 

Each piece of content you deliver will compound your reputation in your area. Soon, you’ll see engagement on your posts, people in your DMs, and texts and phone calls from people in your community asking to meet for a cup of coffee to talk about listing their homes.

11. Track Your Progress

What do I mean when I say, “track your progress?” That’s a fair question. I haven’t talked much about key performance indicators (KPIs) in this article, so now is a good time to dive into what KPIs you should be tracking. Your KPIs will give you a good idea of where your traffic is coming from, how well you or your team are converting, and so much more. Knowledge is power in marketing, and the more you know about your leads and your success at converting those leads, the more success you will achieve.

Once you’ve got your marketing plan up and running, use tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Ads Manager, and your CRM analytics tools to monitor how effective your marketing is. Conversion rates will give you a lot of information about your return on investment. But also look at the length of time for conversions to get a better view of your overall marketing effectiveness.

Here is a short list of some of the most important metrics to track once you’ve implemented your real estate marketing plan:

• Website traffic
• Lead capture rate
• Conversion rate
• Response rate
• Cost per lead
• Cost per client
• Lifetime customer value
• Referral rates
• Engagement rates
• Click-through rate

These are only a few metrics you can track. Some of these you will find in your CRM dashboard, some are in your social media dashboard. Some of these metrics you may need to track on your own, like how well you convert your print media or how many transactions resulted from experiential marketing efforts. A tried-and-true spreadsheet works exceptionally well for those situations. 

Remember to adjust your marketing efforts based on what your metrics tells you. 

Your Take

Diving into your real estate marketing plan might seem daunting, but it’s an absolute game-changer for ensuring success from the start. Skip the trial-and-error that leaves many agents back at square one. Use this guide to build a marketing plan that’s as dynamic as your business, revisiting and refining it every quarter to stay ahead. Don’t forget to download our real estate marketing plan template to streamline your path to growth. Start applying these insights today, and set your real estate career on the fast track to success.

Have you used a marketing plan for your real estate business? Did I miss any steps that you swear by? Did you download this marketing plan template and implement it? How did it go? Let me know in the comments.

The post The Ultimate Real Estate Marketing Plan Template for Long-term Growth appeared first on The Close.

I learned this from experience. In my 28-year career in real estate, I have launched or coached more than 20 startup real estate brokerages. Accurately estimating expenses was one of the most critical steps we took. That’s why I decided to put together this article to outline the right way to estimate expenses for your new brokerage.

Real Estate Brokerage Expense Categories

In this article, we’ll review all the common real estate brokerage expenses you may incur operating a new business. Each of the categories below represents a group of expenses along with their estimated annual costs—just divide by 12 to grab your monthly cost. I’ve also pinpointed each category’s ideal percentage of your overall revenue.

I’ll break each category down and explain it in detail. After reviewing each of your brokerage expense categories, you can move to estimating your revenue and completing your real estate brokerage budget.

It’s important to note here that, strictly speaking, profit is not an expense. However, we’ve factored in a 20% profit margin, assuming you want to run a reasonably profitable brokerage business by efficiently managing expenses and revenue according to the guidelines we’ve set forth here. More on this topic later.

Real Estate Brokerage Expense Categories: Costs vs Revenues

Let’s do a quick high-level overview of your expenses. We’ve done a breakout of: 

• Categories
• Annual costs
• Percentage of annual revenue

Payroll Expenses

Estimated total annual cost: $40,000-$120,000
Ideal percentage of revenue: 25%-30%

Your real estate brokerage payroll expenses may vary. Many new brokers forget to factor in the other expenses from employees—think payroll, paid time off, insurance—and, of course—taxes. A few more considerations when it comes to payroll include:

• The number of employees you have and their statuses (full time, nonexempt, etc.)
• The employment market
• Any additional benefits you choose to offer your employees

Here’s a breakdown on the main payroll expenses you’ll need to account for:

Employee Payroll

Estimated annual cost: $32,000-$96,000

The number of employees you have at any given time depends on the services you’re offering to attract agents and the size of your brokerage. For deeper insight on which employees to hire at different stages of growth, see my previous article: The 5 Employees You Need to Hire to Grow Your Brokerage.

The city and state in which you’re opening your brokerage will also affect the cost of payroll—an office manager’s salary can vary significantly between a city like Chicago and a rural town like Wichita. To get an accurate estimate of hiring costs in your area, you’ll need to research average salaries in the area (make sure to filter by county).

Employee Benefits

Estimated annual cost: $3,200-$9,600

Remember to factor in employee benefits like health insurance, life insurance, vacation days, family leave, 401(k) contributions, and bonuses. These expenses can surprise you later and throw off your profitability if overlooked. Decide now what your policy will be for paid time off and whether or not you will contribute to a retirement plan on behalf of your employees. Keep in mind that these benefits are also great recruiting tactics, which help attract the best talent for your business. 

Employer Payroll Tax

Estimated annual cost: $2,700-$8,100

The most common expense new broker-owners overlook is the additional taxes the government requires employers to pay. Let me tell you, the IRS doesn’t take kindly to businesses that fail to pony up. In addition to the hourly wage or salary that you agree to pay your employees, you must also pay employer payroll taxes, which are an additional 7.65% that your brokerage pays to Medicare and Social Security.

Workers Compensation Insurance

Estimated annual cost: $560-$1,680

Most states also require employers to provide workers’ compensation insurance. Failing to do so may result in significant fines or even closure. Workers’ compensation insurance protects the employee and you in the event that your employee gets injured on the job and isn’t able to work.

Payroll Servicing Company

Estimated annual cost: $900-$2,700

If all this gives you a headache, you can hand off all your payroll worries to a payroll servicing company. These companies will handle all the state and national requirements for hiring and managing employees, including legal regulations, tax withholding, and workers’ compensation insurance. Just be sure to factor the additional expense for payroll servicing into your budget.

There’s plenty of broker software options to help you with payroll and accounting, as well as other back-office tasks like compliance management, transactions, and commission management. For example, Lone Wolf Back Office, formerly known as brokerWOLF, has been in the business for more than three decades. The software user interface (UI) leaves a bit to be desired, but it gets the job done.

Office & Office-related Expenses

Estimated total annual cost:  $80,00-$260,000 ($0 virtual)
Ideal percentage of revenue:  20%-30% (0% virtual)

Unless your real estate brokerage operates virtually (without an office), your office will likely take up a large chunk of your expenses. Still on the fence about the benefits of a brick-and-mortar versus a virtual office? Consider the type of agents you’re looking to recruit, the services you’ll be providing, and the flexibility of the lease terms. Each situation is different. Since there are so many factors to consider, choosing the right office can be challenging.

For expense purposes, you can break the costs associated with a brick-and-mortar real estate office down into four categories: 

• Base rent 
• Common area maintenance (CAM) 
• Utilities
• General maintenance

Base Rent

Estimated annual cost: $36,000-$66,000

The base rent is the amount your brokerage must pay each month for the use of the space. In a city like Boulder, Colorado, typical office space can range from $25 to $50-plus per square foot. To calculate your base rent on a commercial lease, you’ll need to multiply the total square footage of the portion of the building you are leasing by the cost per square foot.

For example, if you’re looking at office space that is 3,000 square feet and the landlord is asking $22 per square foot for base rent, then your cost would be $66,000 a year in annual base rent. Divide your annual base rent by 12, and you will have your monthly base rent, which in this case would be $5,500.

Common Area Maintenance

Estimated annual cost: $15,000-$30,000

Common area maintenance fees are additional expenses associated with the property that are passed through to the tenant. These tend to include costs directly related to the space you occupy plus the costs associated with the rest of the property, like parking lots or other shared spaces.

Common CAM expenses are cleaning, repairs, building maintenance, utilities, internet, insurance, security, parking lot maintenance, snow removal, landscaping, trash, and taxes.

CAM fees can add $7 to $12 per square foot to your lease, and you can even be charged retroactively if the landlord underestimates the CAM. So, before you sign that lease, make sure you understand your potential liability and what you can afford.

Utilities

Estimated annual cost: $3,000-$13,000

If your lease or CAM doesn’t include utilities, you’ll need to budget for them as well. When you budget for utilities, you may think only of gas, electricity, water, and sewer. However, if you plan to make calls and use the internet, you’ll need to budget for communication costs too. They can add up quickly.

Maintenance

Estimated annual cost: $1,500-$3,000

If everything goes as planned with your brokerage (and why shouldn’t it?), you’ll have lots of wear and tear from busy agents using your office. To keep things ship-shape, you will want to budget for common maintenance tasks. This can include services like trash removal, recycling, and paper shredding.

If you are renting a standalone building or building maintenance isn’t covered in your lease or CAM, then you’ll want to budget for additional building maintenance to ensure your agents and their clients aren’t turned off by a poorly maintained office.

Software Expenses

Estimated annual cost: $13,000-$36,000
Ideal percentage of revenue: 3%-6%

Gone are the days of having four to five employees to run your real estate brokerage. Today many of the services brokerages provide are managed with software, allowing you to run your brokerage with as few as just one employee.

Since there are so many options for brokerage software available today, estimating these expenses can be tricky. For a detailed breakdown of the software choices available to brokerages today, see my article on essential real estate brokerage software tools.

For now, here is a quick look with rough pricing estimates for software you’ll need to consider:

Associations, Professional & Insurance Expenses

Estimated total annual cost: $12,000-$18,000
Ideal percentage of revenue: 2%-4%

Some expenses to run your real estate brokerage are necessary but are far less exciting than renting a flashy office. We’re talking about unavoidable expenses like insurance, banking, and legal costs.

Additionally, expenses like membership dues, licensing fees, and tax preparation can easily be overlooked because they only happen once a year. To create a comprehensive budget, you will need to remember to include each of these annual costs—they can add up, and you don’t want them to catch you by surprise. 

Here is a quick breakdown of the expenses associated with licensing, insurance, bookkeeping (assuming you’re not using a payroll service or managing your own books), and other professional costs.

Outsourcing: Transaction Coordination, Compliance Management & Back Office Services

Estimated total annual cost: $18,000-$24,000
Ideal percentage of revenue: 15%-20%

To keep your employee costs low, consider outsourcing as much as you can from the beginning. Fortunately, you can easily outsource brokerage tasks like transaction management and brokerage file review. While you’re at it, consider outsourcing other agent services like photography, marketing, or sign installation and storage.

Transaction coordinator companies charge between $150 and $300 a file, depending on the volume you’ll be sending them. If money is tight, you might consider paying a detail-minded, experienced agent in your brokerage to do it on the side for less. You can also consider integrating your transaction management and commission management into a back-end software like Brokermint or Paperless Pipeline. Check out our guide on the best transaction management software to see if one of those options might work for you.

Lead Gen Advertising

Estimated total annual cost: $20,000-$100,000
Estimated return: $40,000-$400,000
Percentage of revenue: Excluded from operational budget

While providing buyer and seller leads isn’t required to operate a brokerage, many brokerages today pay to generate brokerage referred leads.

To help manage this, many tech-savvy brokerages use all-in-one customer relationship manager (CRM), website, and lead management software platforms like Real Geeks to generate leads. The cost of these systems ranges from $500 to more than $2,500 per month, excluding advertising costs. The advertising spend necessary to generate a consistent return starts at $1,000 per month and can quickly exceed $10,000 per month. If you’re looking for a more hands-off approach, you can buy leads directly for your agents from services like zBuyer or realtor.com. But keep in mind that you’re spending hard-earned commission dollars to save that time. 

To maximize your return on investment (ROI) from leads you buy for your agents, you might want to consider hiring a leads manager to handle the system, track leads, and keep agents accountable. This one hire can increase your ROI up to 400% of the investment you make in lead buying.

Separate Profit & Loss Statement

So why isn’t this in the operational budget? Instead of including the cost of the system, advertising, and leads manager in your brokerage’s overall budget, I recommend having a separate profit and loss (P&L) statement for the leads program. This P&L will combine the expenses of running the program with the revenue received as referral fees. Your agents will pay a portion of their commission or referral fee at the close of any transaction referred from the leads program. This P&L will quickly show you if the program is operating profitably.

Recruiting, Advertising & PR Costs

Estimated total annual cost: $7,000-$60,000
Ideal percentage of revenue: 5%-10%

Recruiting, advertising, and PR expenses will also take a significant chunk of your revenue each month. Here are some quick estimates of common costs associated with recruiting, advertising, and PR.

Agent Recruiting Ads

Estimated annual cost: $3,000-$6,000

Even if you do no other advertising, you’ll want to budget for agent recruitment ads on websites like Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and LinkedIn if you wish to grow your brokerage rapidly. These websites charge a monthly fee to run recruiting ads. 

Newspaper Display Ads & Press Releases

Estimated annual cost: $0-$24,000

Yes—the newspaper is still an effective way to promote your brokerage and your listings. This is especially true in high-traffic tourist destinations, small towns, and areas where the average population is older. To save money, negotiate your display ads in six- to 12-month agreements instead of weekly ads.

When your agents feel appreciated, they will stay. The best way to welcome a new agent aboard or celebrate an agent’s accomplishments is to do paid press releases. Most newspapers will run these for a few hundred dollars. Take my word for it—it’s totally worth it!

Signs, Swag & Business Cards

Estimated annual cost: $1,000-$8,000

Printing, storing, and managing your brokerage’s listing and open house signs will not only make your agents happier, it will help you maintain your brand image and standards. Contract with a sign company for a volume discount.

Physical swag like custom pens, coffee mugs, shirts, hats, or umbrellas can also go a long way to helping you promote your brand and make your agents feel part of a team.

Another outstanding way to maintain your brand while standing out from the brokerages that make agents pay for everything is to provide business cards for your agents. It is a low-cost and simple gesture that agents will cherish. Check out our breakdown on the best real estate business cards (plus mistakes to avoid). 

Social Media & Google Remarketing

Estimated annual cost: $3,000-$22,000

Build your brand awareness by having a solid remarketing campaign on both Google and Facebook. This displays your brokerage ads to visitors who landed on your website when they later use Google or Facebook. It will not only build your brokerage brand with the community, but with new potential agents as well.

Also, don’t miss the opportunity to set up your Google Business Profile and Yelp for Business accounts. Both of these will help consumers find your brokerage quickly.

Office Supplies & Other Expenses

Estimated total annual cost: $8,500-$15,000
Ideal percentage of revenue: 3%-8%

The expenses related to office supplies have decreased dramatically this year, but they can still be significant. Yet, if you are building a full-service brokerage, you still want to be prepared to support the busy agent who needs their marketing and presentations professionally printed and bound.

You will also have some costs related to your part-time and full-time employees working at the office each day.

Coffee & Filtered Water

Estimated annual cost: $1,500

Truth be told, I love coffee, and I am a coffee snob. Brokerages that don’t provide their employees and agents quality coffee and filtered water may as well be saying, “We actually don’t want you here!”

Do yourself and your team a favor and spend a little extra on the small things that matter. Coffee and water service companies like Lavazza will keep you stocked up and prevent you from having to run to the store for coffee five minutes before the team meeting.

Office Supplies & Paper

Estimated annual cost: $1,200

The cost of pens, paper, and Post-it notes adds up, and if not managed, these can quickly eat up your profits. To keep office spending under control, set a monthly budget so everyone knows where the spending limit lies.

Copy Machine & Ink

Estimated annual cost: $3,600

You may find this shocking, but a top-of-the-line copy machine today can cost as much as a used car! Copy machine companies will do their best to tie you into a long-term lease on a new machine for $500 to $700 a month.

They will tell you that you will save money over time. What they don’t tell you is that the lease cost usually doesn’t cover the total cost of the ink. They will say things like, “Ink is only 3 cents a page.” What they don’t say is that a color page uses four ink colors per page. In reality, each color page costs 12 cents a page, and this is in addition to the cost of leasing the copier.

To keep your budget within reason, I suggest you find a used copier for $3,000 to $5,000 and then pay for a maintenance contract for $200 to $300 a month, including ink for a limited number of copies.

Shredding

Estimated annual cost: $480

With identity theft at an all-time high, shredding confidential printed documentation is a must. You can even turn this into an event at your brokerage for agents to invite their clients and generate business.

Meals & Event Expenses

Estimated total annual cost: $9,000-$24,000
Ideal percentage of revenue: 2%-5%

Unless you want to be personally footing the bill each time you meet a potential recruit or have a team meeting (guilty!), you will need to include meals and events in your expenses. Here is a quick breakdown of estimated expenses for meals and events for a small brokerage:

Profit as an Expense

Most people don’t think of profit as an expense. But if you wish to build an accurate budget for your real estate brokerage, you will need to factor in the profit you want to make.

Let’s use a comparison of selling apples at your local farmer’s market. Say the cost of buying the apples from a local organic grower costs you $5, and then you spend $2 on cleaning them and placing them in a bushel. Your cost of goods is $7, right? However, you also have other expenses like gas and the rent on your space at the farmers market to consider. These two expenses run you an additional $60 a month.

So what’s your profit? Well, your profit will depend on how many bushels of apples you sell. To determine how many apples you need to sell each month, you must first determine how much profit you wish to make.

Let’s say your goal is to make $300 a month in profit selling apples at the market. Knowing that the cost of goods is $7 a bushel and your monthly expenses are $60 a month, we can now calculate that you must sell 120 bushels each month to make $300 in profit.

Creating a budget for your real estate brokerage is no different. Decide on an amount or percentage of profit you wish to achieve each year and add it to your expenses before estimating your revenue.

Further Reading & Next Steps for Aspiring Broker-owners

Now you’re ready to estimate your expenses. Once you complete that, you can move to the fun part: estimating your real estate brokerage revenues and finalizing your budget. Don’t forget to grab your free real estate brokerage budget worksheet. 

If you are building or considering starting your real estate brokerage, check out our growing list of industry insider articles on starting, running, and growing your brokerage. And if you’ve got some budgeting tips that we haven’t covered, let us know in the comment section.

The post How to Estimate Real Estate Brokerage Expenses appeared first on The Close.

In this review, I’ll take a deep-dive into Ylopo’s offerings, including pricing, features, and alternatives. By the end of this article, you’ll clearly understand whether Ylopo is the right fit for your real estate business.

Pros

• Multi-channel ads on Facebook, Google
• AI-driven lead nurturing bot
• Integration with Homebot for automated home values
• Beautiful IDX website
• Detailed ad performance data for each platform

Cons

• $1,500 startup fee
• No built-in CRM
• Pricing can be high
• Separate conversion system needed
• 90-day cancellation period appears to affect support quality

The Close Score

4.3

Pricing:

4.0

Features:

4.6

User Interface:

4.3

Support:

4.1

out
of

5

What Is Ylopo?

Ylopo is a specialized marketing platform designed with a singular focus—to provide real estate agents with well-qualified leads who are just beginning their property searches. They are directed from your ads to a branded home search website, where you can see their activity and connect with them directly.

In the world of real estate technology, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with countless features and options. But what agents truly desire is one thing: leads. This is where Ylopo comes into play. Ylopo will handle your website and advertising while you do what agents do best—make connections. 

Note: Ylopo 2.0 was launched in January 2024, upgrading many of the features in this review. It also added an iBuyer option, predictive analytics for future homesellers, and other innovative updates. 

How Does Ylopo Work? 

Ylopo uses MLS feeds to create dynamic Facebook ads. Then, they give agents a custom, lightning-fast IDX website designed to be a sleeker, more user-friendly version of Zillow. 

Note that there is no built-in customer relationship manager (CRM), but plenty of integrations exist. This makes Ylopo an easy add-on to your current lead gen strategies.

Once potential clients visit your site, Ylopo’s tracking capabilities kick in. You can monitor users’ property searches, the duration of their visits saved listings, and login frequency. This data lets you engage with your leads at precisely the right moment. As soon as you see that your prospect has viewed a home a few times, you can use that as a prompt: Ask them if they’d like to schedule a showing or what they liked about that listing. 

Additionally, Ylopo offers a way to re-engage cold leads who are already in your CRM through retargeting. This strategy involves tracking users online and displaying tailored ads on Facebook, breathing new life into old leads.

How Much Does Ylopo Cost?

Ylopo pricing options are flexible but can be a bit complicated. The website-only package starts at $345 per month. This includes two websites—one for your brand and one for leads.

However, for the full lead generation suite, you can expect to pay a monthly subscription of $545 per month. With this, you’ll essentially get $100 of advertising for free, as Ylopo includes $300 of advertising built into this tier. When you choose to run your advertising through Ylopo, there is a surcharge of 10%, which is pretty standard for the industry. 

Ylopo also charges based on the number of leads imported into its system. So the more advertising you do to gather leads, the more Ylopo will charge to manage those leads for you. 

Then there are add-ons like the AI nurture bot and remarketing to your current sphere. Those prices are based on the number of leads you’re working in their system. What Ylopo charges for add-ons will depend on what level they place you in. While the company did not answer my questions about exactly how these levels are calculated, it seems to vary depending on your market or the number of contacts in your database. Those levels are determined by Ylopo and are subject to change. It’s important to note that there’s also a $1,500 startup fee in addition to the monthly subscription cost.

Ylopo’s pricing is on par with alternatives like BoomTown, and it offers flexibility for agents with varying budgets. While there is no built-in CRM, the integrations make adapting your workflow a breeze. Plus, the features such as the AI-driven lead nurturing and Homebot integration provide a lot of value for agents. 

Ylopo could be a great choice for tech-savvy agents or rising stars who are a few years into their real estate careers. In my opinion, this platform will work best when you know how to convert online leads. Facebook ads perform best when you have a presence established on the platform, so make sure your profile and business page are up to date. I also have to stress that you need to be able to convert these leads. Know your scripts and be able to talk to online leads effectively.

Ylopo’s AI lead-nurturing tool Raiya engages leads automatically for you to make the process as easy as possible. Ylopo will run your online advertising and marketing, along with your website, to nurture the leads you receive from Google pay-per-click (PPC) and Facebook. It’s your job to convert them. Reaching buyers early can help you build rapport before they turn to popular listing websites like Zillow and Realtor.com.   

Pricing Breakdown

Because Ylopo’s pricing is on the complicated side, let’s break things down one more time focusing on a single agent looking to get started with Ylopo. The pricing breakdown would look something like this:

• $1,500 startup fee
• Starter package: $545 per month* + advertising costs
• Raiya for incoming leads: $150 per month

*Lead generation cost varies depending on your advertising budget.

With all of this, you’re looking at roughly $800 per month, with an initial investment of $1,500. Nobody said online advertising was cheap!

Key Features of Ylopo

IDX Home Search Websites

Ylopo’s IDX websites are a highlight of the company’s offerings. They’re optimized for speed and tailored for lead generation, ensuring that users don’t abandon your site due to slow loading times. 

These sites are based on Squarespace. They’re super-easy to use, and unlike some popular listing websites that can be cumbersome to navigate, Ylopo’s sites are intuitive. This offers your users a straightforward way to search for properties. No frills—just a clean layout and easy-to-use tools.

According to data from Google, a whopping 53% of users will abandon your site if it takes longer than three seconds to load. That’s right. Three seconds. Ylopo sites are quick, so you don’t have to worry about optimizing websites—you’re here to sell real estate. 

Tracking Leads on Your Ylopo Site

Ylopo has the ability to track user behavior on your IDX website. This is similar to Zurple’s, BoomTown’s and RealGeeks’ platforms. You can see how long visitors spend on specific listings, which properties they save, and when they log in. Armed with this data, you can engage with your leads using listings they’re actually interested in. 

It’s one thing to know when people are on your website, but quite another to know that they just spent 15 minutes flipping between two properties, or that this is the fifth time in the last two days they looked at that cute blue bungalow across from the dog park.

Once you’ve seen that data, it’s easy to pick up the phone to offer a showing or ask them exactly what they liked about that home. This subtly tells your leads you’re engaged and looking for homes along with them, helping create a stronger relationship and better chances for conversion.

Mission Control

Ylopo’s Mission Control page offers a quick overview of how each of your ads is performing in granular detail. You’ll be able to see exactly which platforms are performing well and why. This helps you figure out which parts of your advertising spend are actually working.

Amazingly, Ylopo is so confident in their tech and marketing strategies that they actually show you everything they’re doing to promote your business online. Using the dashboard, you can even decide if you want to participate or not. This transparency is a nice touch. 

Industry Leading Facebook Advertising

Running successful Facebook ads can be tough, but Ylopo simplifies the process by utilizing big data, current MLS listings, and strategic targeting. Their team has years of experience and demographic info that’s not available to the public, which they deploy to make sure your ads reach the right audience. You don’t want to be wasting ad money on people who aren’t good leads. For example, with sellers, Ylopo states that they “find all of the homeowners in your database using Facebook’s algorithm and demographic targeting.”

Moreover, Ylopo automatically updates ads based on MLS data, preventing sold properties from appearing in front of your leads on Facebook. This automation keeps your listings current.

Remarketing: Advanced & Automated Lead Nurturing

Ylopo’s retargeting feature allows you to nurture both new and old leads effectively. Here’s how it works: After someone visits your website or you acquire their contact information, Ylopo can track their online behavior and display highly targeted ads on Facebook. This is a powerful tool for re-engaging dormant leads in your CRM.

Keep in mind that this is an add-on feature. You’ll need to pay the $100 remarketing fee and the advertisements themselves. It’s a pretty cool feature, but keep in mind you’ll be paying quite a bit for Ylopo to re-engage leads that were near the top of the marketing funnel in the first place.

Raiya is Ylopo’s AI chatbot designed to assist you in nurturing your leads. It engages with potential clients, sends over recommended listings, and tailors messages to help maintain engagement. 

Consistent communication with online leads is key to establishing trust and maintaining the relationship until they’re ready to convert. However, staying in touch with dozens of potential leads is tough. Raiya can do this easily to ensure you’re making the most of your budget. It’s a great AI tool to keep in touch with leads, as long as you’re willing to pay the extra $100-plus fee each month. 

The key to online leads lies in the nurture process. Chatbots have come a long way in the last few years and are becoming much more common with services like this, including CINC and BoomTown. I’d say this chatbot is essentially on par with others I’ve seen in the space. I like the natural language capabilities, but the responses tend to feel canned after a while. It’s more a lead engagement bot rather than a lead nurturing tool. If you’re looking to fully automate your lead follow-up game, I’d lean into a tool like Agent Legend instead. 

Integrations

Ylopo’s system does not include a customer relationship manager (CRM). However, they offer integration with several real estate CRMs. A nice touch to their system is the built-in Homebot integration. This is included with Ylopo with no additional cost and sends sellers an automated, consistent “homeowner nurture email” that includes the latest market trends, estimated value of their home, and much more. 

Ylopo has seamless two-way integration with the following CRMs: 

• Follow Up Boss
• Sierra Interactive
• Chime
• Firepoint
• LionDesk

They offer partial integration with:

• BoomTown!
• CINC
• Salesforce
• Contactually
• Wise Agent
• Total Brokerage
• Bitrix24
• Infusionsoft
• HubSpot
• ActiveCampaign
• Pipedrive
• kvCore
• ConversionMonster

Alternatives

Ylopo isn’t a plug-and-play scenario—you’re locked into a contract, you don’t have control of the copy on your ads, and it doesn’t include a CRM. You need your own follow-up system. My experience with their sales team hasn’t been stellar, so I worry for agents who might be hounded into buying something that isn’t right for them. For those agents—I hope this review finds you. 

While Ylopo offers a compelling solution for agents looking for quality leads and marketing automation, it’s important to consider some other options. Let’s take a closer look at some of the alternatives and what sets them apart.

Zillow Premier Agent

Zillow is well known for providing agents with advertising on its website for buyer leads in certain ZIP codes. By working with Zillow as a Premier Agent, you can become the “Featured Agent” for a certain area. You’re not buying space on Facebook or Google—only on Zillow’s platforms, which include Zillow, Trulia and StreetEasy.

There are various options for lead generation on Zillow. The platform includes a built-in CRM and the option for leads to be immediately connected with you via the “live transfer” program. Zillow is designed to help agents grow their business easily. They handle the platform and technology; you handle the connections and focus on the relationships. You can check out our full breakdown for Zillow Premier Agent here.

Market Leader

Market Leader is an all-in-one real estate platform offering a customizable website, paid lead generation, and a CRM. While the user interface may not be as polished as other competitors, it’s affordable. Because converting internet leads can be challenging, I love that Market Leader offers lead conversion training. Pricing varies, with the Professional for Agents plan starting at $189 per month plus $7 to $30 per lead, and the Market Leader Teams plan at $329 per month with the same lead costs, accommodating up to 10 users. 

The Market Leader platform also has a “Network Boost” option to get an average of 25 leads for just $399, every month via social media advertising that’s very similar to Ylopo. If you’re looking for a quick, cost-effective way to grow your network—and need a CRM and website solution to match—this could be a great option. Read our Market Leader review for more.

BoomTown

BoomTown is very similar to Ylopo—it offers digital advertising services that are funneled into a home search website. However, BoomTown also offers a CRM and several dialer integrations. Its products come in four tiers: Launch, Core, Grow, and btPRO, and they have deal tracking and back-office integration built into the platform. 

BoomTown is a great option for teams and brokers with a healthy budget who are seeking an integrated, out-of-the-box solution. Check out the BoomTown section in our website builders buyer’s guide.

zBuyer

zBuyer provides both buyer and seller leads. Notably, they stand out on this list for not locking you into a long-term contract, allowing you to leave if you’re not satisfied or you want to take a break and focus on converting your leads for a month or two. They also offer free older leads for your prospecting funnel. For every dollar spent with zBuyer, they offer a four- to 12-month-old lead from their system at no additional cost.

zBuyer does not include a CRM, but it has plenty of integrations. It’s a cost-effective lead generation option with flexibility and no long-term commitment for agents who need to fill their pipeline quickly. Read more in our zBuyer review here.

Bottom Line: Is Ylopo Worth the Money? 

I’ve read some reviews online saying that the Ylopo sales team is casting their net too wide for agents who won’t find success with this platform. To be honest, I tend to agree. It’s not for everyone. In fact, I’d say this isn’t for the majority of agents. 

It is an investment to significantly pump up your lead pipeline. It’s expensive and time-consuming, but will likely pay off if you work the leads. If you’re considering Ylopo, ensure that you’ve got two things in place: 

1. A follow-up system, including a CRM
2. A clear understanding of how to convert leads

It seems simple, but too often, agents nurture their leads and don’t do the necessary action of locking down the agreement. Then they get burned when a lead they paid for becomes a client of another agent. Don’t let that happen to you. 

Methodology

To evaluate Ylopo, I relied on my years of real estate sales and coaching agents. I’ve used dozens of real estate software solutions to find the best ones for my clients, my business, and our readers. I also looked at the criteria most important to agents when it comes to digital marketing and lead generation: 

• Does Ylopo deliver on providing leads to agents?
• Do the features justify the cost? 
• Who is this product for? Why? 
• Are there other alternatives that do the same job better or cheaper? 

Ylopo is not a paid partner of The Close. Despite repeated attempts to reach the Ylopo team, we were unable to get a demo of company’s product. 

At The Close, we strive to answer our readers’ questions transparently and bring you the most valuable and actionable real estate content possible. You can learn more about our full methodology here.

Share Your Thoughts

I’d love to hear your thoughts on lead generation and nurturing. Do you think Ylopo could work for your business, or do you have concerns about automation diminishing the personal touch in your interactions with leads? Share your opinions in the comment section below.

The post Ylopo Review: An In-Depth Look at Features and Pricing appeared first on The Close.