7 Best Ways of Generating Motivated Home Seller Leads for Real Estate Investors

Driving for dollars is many investors’ classic favorite method. This strategy involves driving around your local market, where you or investors from your cash buyer list are looking to purchase properties.

While you drive, you will keep track of homes that need work, look vacant, or are for sale by owner. These will be the investment properties whose owners you want to reach out to.

How It Works

The best way to start driving for dollars as a real estate investing lead source is to download DealMachine, PropStream or REIRail software which are some of the best driving for dollars apps out there.

A driving for dollars app will help you locate, organize, and contact your investment property leads all in one place.

While you drive, make sure you are bookmarking properties similar to the ones mentioned above.

At the end of your drive, you will probably have compiled multiple houses that you are interested in.

The next step after finding abandoned properties or run down homes would be to skip trace the owners and attempt to get in contact with them. There is a skip tracing function in the app.

Or, if you aren’t using a driving for dollars app having this feature, you can use one of the best skip tracing tools for real estate investors.

If a homeowner doesn’t answer, follow up later. If they do answer, congratulations — you just got your first real estate investment lead!

Pros

This strategy is one of the easiest and most effective on the list. If you have a car, phone, and some time, you can start generating real estate investment leads for your business!

Cons

Like any strategy, driving for dollars isn’t perfect. It is time consuming: to benefit from this strategy, you need to put in hours of work driving and bookmarking properties you are interested in.

I recommend going with a partner to have somebody drive while another person marks potential properties — this helps to speed up the process.

Or you can outsource this task to real estate bird dogs.

In my opinion, Google Ads is an elite tool for real estate investing lead generation.

Within days of setting up your first campaign, you can have targeted ads helping you collect information on some of the best investment deals in your area!

The setup seems simple as Google walks you through the process when you sign up. However, there is a lot to learn if you want to avoid overspending your marketing budget.

How It Works

Google Ads targets keywords that you are interested in for your business.

For example, as a real estate investor, you would love to get in contact with somebody who types “sell my house fast for cash” in Google.

In Google Ads, you can set up a campaign with ads shown to people typing this phrase and other phrases that express the same intent.

These ads will appear among the first few search results at the top (and will contain a mark saying “ad” next to them).

You are charged every time a user clicks on your ad. This is why this advertising method is also called Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising.

To help you find relevant phrases that people type in search — keywords — Google has a tool — Keyword Planner.

It shows how often a keyword is searched, how much it will cost you if someone clicks on your ad targeting this keyword, and how competitive it is in your target location.

In short, Google Ads algorithms put your website in front of all the right people which helps you get reliable leads without a lot of leg work.

Pros

Google Ads is by far one of the simplest ways to get home selling leads for real estate investors. You can have your first campaign set up within 30 minutes and get your first lead in a few days.

Cons

This strategy requires significant capital upfront, especially if you are in a competitive real estate investment market.

Depending on the competition in your area and the number of leads you need, you may have to spend upwards of $3,000 a month to bring in a substantial amount of leads.

It also requires education. If you don’t know the intricacies of this strategy, it’s easy to overspend.

Rather than setting up your first campaign and hoping for the best, you better either take a free Google Ads course or use one of the best PPC management services for real estate investors.

Facebook Ads offer a more personalized targeting of potential leads. Through Facebook, you can run ads targeting more specific audience types.

If you enjoy data and marketing, then you may get the most out of using Facebook for your real estate investor lead generation.

How It Works

Facebook works to segment your audience and offer you a granular approach to generating leads.

For example, you think it’s best to market to older demographics who may want to downsize or move closer to their grandkids.

If so, you can go ahead and make a campaign focused on individuals 65+.

Facebook Ads offer an unmatched level of customization and the rewards are exponential.

As you dial in your ads and get more creative and precise, you will see the quality and quantity of your leads improve.

Unlike PPC advertising, Facebook Ads charges you per impression — every time an ad appears on a user’s screen when they are using Facebook.

Pros

Like mentioned before, the customization options make it a great tool for the savvy marketer who perfectly knows their target audience.

Facebook Ads look more attractive than Google Search ads because they contain graphics or videos rather than just text.

Cons

You pay for impressions, which means you are charged whether or not a user who sees your ad clicks on it.

Another disadvantage is Facebook’s user interface and complexity of ads. Differences between ad types and ad placement options mean there is a lot to learn before you get started.

Just like with Google Ads, the cost per lead may be too high if you don’t know the best practices.

Educate yourself beforehand by taking online courses or watching free YouTube tutorials.

Or, you can opt for outsourcing this task to professionals providing Facebook Ads services for real estate investors.

Search engine optimization or SEO has been around as long as search engines, like Google, have been a thing.

Search engine optimization means optimizing your website to get better positions in search results for your target keywords.

Search engine optimization is the best lead generation strategy for real estate investors in the long term perspective if you are looking to generate leads on autopilot.

How It Works

SEO is a deeply complex topic, but it essentially involves optimizing web pages on your website for different keywords you would like to show up for.

For example, you want users to find you while searching “sell my house to an investor in Houston” or “sell my house fast Houston”. And you want them to contact you for a service.

In this case, you can create a web page all about advertising your services in this location.

The page would talk about what you offer, how conveniently your home buying process works, why your company is trustworthy, and other details to convince your potential client to choose your service.

Or you can write an informative blog post for users who aren’t ready to go and order a service yet but are already exploring their options.

For example, this blog post on the topic “How Does Selling Your House to an Investor Work?” is another type of web page — an informative article.

Rather than being all about advertising, it explains how the process of selling a house to a real estate investor works in general.

However, at the end, this article still contains a section advertising the home buyer’s services — a call to action and contact information.

You want each of your web pages to show at the top of the first page of search results. Each web page should show for keywords directly relevant to its main topic.

Optimizing a web page for search engines and lead generation would involve:

• Keyword research: looking for keywords corresponding to a search intent by using a keyword research tool.

• Writing high quality content for each web page and using corresponding keywords in it.

• Adding elements allowing users to contact you — a prominent contact form or a button with a call to action.

• Making sure the pages are indexed by Google and other search engines. This means that search engines know about the existence of your web pages and what each page is about so that they can show them for relevant queries.

• Making sure your web pages load quickly enough and are convenient to use.

• Building links from other websites pointing to your web pages (Google considers this as a proof of your web page being valuable because other websites find it important enough to refer to it).

Apart from optimizing each web page, you will need to optimize your website as a whole by making sure its structure and other technical features correspond to the best SEO practices.

Luckily, SEO professionals, developers, and web designers have already created many pre-made website solutions for real estate investors that you can buy, adjust to your brand, and use.

They are already SEO-optimized on the sitewide level. But you still need to adhere to the best real estate SEO practices during an initial setup up process and when creating new web pages and content for them.

Each of the points on the list above requires knowledge of various technicalities. As you see, it’s not easy.

This strategy requires either time and effort to learn it or money to pay professionals to do SEO for you.

But in return, it generates leads on autopilot. Once you’ve set up your website and published a properly optimized web page that shows among the first search results, it can bring you leads without further involvement for years.

The more web pages like this you have, the more leads you get without having to do anything to make those pages keep working for you.

Pros

SEO gives you an ability to generate motivated seller leads on autopilot. If you have the time to learn and implement it, it can also be cheap.

You may pay an SEO agency to optimize your website for you. They usually charge monthly fees.

If you stop using an agency’s services, your website (assuming you own it) with all its lead generation potential stays yours and keeps working for you.

To compare, if you stop using a PPC specialist, you will lose all the lead flow and all ad campaigns set up by them for your business.

The next agency you hire will have to set up campaigns anew. This will take time and they will charge a setup fee for it.

Cons

SEO takes a long time to accomplish. Not only does it require hours or days of creating content and working on other technicalities, but it can also take months for Google to start showing your content for relevant queries in search results.

Without proper education, you can waste much time and effort creating content that will never bring you any leads because it’s not properly optimized or the article topics you chose are too competitive.

Another factor is that your website performance highly depends on Google and other search engines’ algorithms.

These algorithms define which websites should be shown on which positions. Algorithms are regularly updated which may affect your traffic.

Sometimes, you can lose positions in search results because of an algorithm update, and there is not much you can do about getting them back quickly.

Have you seen the “we buy houses” signs plastered on the stop light at an intersection? Those are “bandit signs” posted by companies that buy houses for cash and often also by property wholesalers.

They are a cheap and effective way for real estate investors to get their sales pitch and contact info out there, in front of potential leads.

How It Works

Anybody can make a bandit sign. Head down to your local hardware store, grab a few signs and a giant sharpie and get to work posting your information in some hot spots around town.

You can also buy bandit signs for real estate investors online if you don’t want to create them yourself.

Be careful as some areas don’t allow signs and they will be taken down within a few days. If your local regulations don’t allow bandit signs, you may be fined.

Make your signs concise and easy to read. Don’t use too much graphics that would obstruct the call to action and contact information. They should be simple, clear, and easily readable from afar.

Ideally, you would find a place to hang them up high to be more visible to those that pass by. If you selected the right place, you may be surprised how many leads they will generate.

Pros

Bandit signs are one of the cheapest ways to generate real estate investor leads. For under $50, you can make 10 or more signs and start getting leads that same day.

Cons

The signs get taken down often. Keep an eye out for when yours are removed so you can replace them.

Study your local municipality’s laws. Placing signs in public may be illegal in your community.

Another way that investors generate real estate leads is by getting to know other real estate professionals in the area and having them forward leads to you.

This is another strategy that takes a lot of work upfront but results in getting leads for the long haul.

How It Works

Some professionals, who don’t buy houses themselves, serve motivated sellers. At a fee or for another benefit, they can refer their clients to you.

You may want to contact the following professionals and offer them a deal:

• probate attorneys
• foreclosure attorneys
• short sale negotiators
• property tax attorneys
• other real estate investors for whom certain deals don’t work
• investor friendly real estate agents

One way to meet other professionals is by joining local real estate investor clubs or real estate investor Facebook groups in your area. Attend real estate investing events too.

Be vocal and personable and try to make connections with as many useful people as you can.

Don’t just reach out for information on new leads but also build relationships. Think of the value you can offer them. Maybe you can send them leads for their business too or anything else?

Check back in with them every once in a while, and I promise they will contact you if they have leads to send your way.

Pros

Most people do not take the time to develop this form of real estate investor lead generation so the competition is very low.

Cons

This strategy takes time, and along the way there will be a lot of people who aren’t who they say they are or just want something from you.

Identify them quickly and don’t waste your time with these relationships.

If the aforementioned methods seem too time consuming or complex for you, you may want to opt for simply buying leads.

There are multiple reputable software companies that generate motivated seller leads for real estate investors and sell them at affordable rates.

How It Works

A lead generation online marketplace can be a website or an app. You will need to create an account and provide your payment details.

You may also be able to enter your buyer criteria so that the service knows what type of leads and in what location to show you first.

In your dashboard, you will be able to see information about leads such as property type, size, price, and other details.

You may also be notified by suitable leads via email or push notifications on your phone.

The contact information will be disclosed after you pay for a lead or your monthly subscription fee, depending on the payment model.

Such a tool may also provide you with additional functions streamlining the process.

For example, after buying a lead or a few, you may be able to send it to your CRM, call the owner, or send them direct mail right from the dashboard in a couple of clicks.

One amazing lead generation tool to look into is REB Leads developed by HouseCashin and Real Estate Bees.

It provides the most affordable yet high quality motivated seller leads nationwide.

REB leads are generated through inbound marketing channels and provide detailed information about the property, including the reason why it’s being sold.

This makes REB leads highly converting while the price is maintained at the lowest level in the industry. Learn more about REB leads.

Pros

This is a quick and easy way to get leads. You get them instantly without any time investment and at reasonable rates.

Cons

You are not in control of how the leads you buy are generated and how up-to-date they are, which is important for their conversion rate.

Also, once you stop using a service, you lose access to the source of leads.