7 Tips on How to Get Clients in Real Estate — Guide for New Agents
The Best Ways to Get Clients in Real Estate: A Step by Step Guide for New Real Estate Agents
New to real estate? Struggling to generate clients quickly? You’re not alone. Many new agents getting started in the real estate industry expect their phone to start ringing with potential clients as soon as they get licensed, but the reality is far different.
In this post, we’ll provide tips on how to get clients in real estate, including traditional methods and a proven step-by-step system that is an effective way to deliver consistent, high-quality prospective clients in any real estate market. Best of all, our approach doesn’t rely on buying real estate leads, complex marketing hacks, or a hefty budget—making it perfect for agents early in their careers.
In This Article
Problem: Challenge of Getting Clients
Explore: Traditional Ways to Find Real Estate Clients
Solution: What’s the Best Option?
Problem: Getting Clients Is the Biggest Challenge for New Agents
The problem most aspiring real estate agents face is trust. Homeowners prefer working with REALTORS® they know and trust, but how do you build that trust without past clients and prior deals under your belt? Many real estate agents fall into the trap of trying many different ways to generate real estate clients — cold calling, door knocking, buying online leads — without a clear strategy.
Instead of spreading yourself thin across various ways to generate new leads, it's essential to focus on building genuine relationships and be a source of valuable information.
Let’s explore six popular traditional methods to attract clients. Then we'll dive into our choice for the best way to get clients for real estate agents.
Explore: Traditional Ways to Get Real Estate Clients
Below are some traditional ways real estate agents use to get more real estate clients, along with a comparison table to help you weigh their effectiveness.
| Method | Description | Difficulty | Pros | Cons | Cost | Conversion Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leverage Your Network | Share your career with family, friends, and acquaintances. | Low | Easy to start, warm leads | Limited reach, network may not need services | Free | Moderate |
| Offer Value | Provide free home valuations or market insights to build credibility. | Medium | Builds trust, demonstrates expertise | Time-intensive, requires knowledge | Free/Low | Moderate |
| Network Actively | Attend events and connect with professionals for referrals. | Medium | Builds referral relationships, local visibility | Can be time-consuming | Free/Low | Low-Moderate |
| Open Houses | Host open houses to meet potential buyers. | Medium | Practice interacting with buyers | Requires listings, inconsistent results | Low | Low-Moderate |
| Cold Calling /Knocking | Contact homeowners in targeted neighborhoods. | High | Wide reach | High rejection rate, time-consuming | Free/Low | Low |
| Build Online Presence | Create a real estate website and share consistent content on social media. | High | Long-term lead generation, brand building | Takes time to gain traction, requires regular updates | Moderate/High | Low |
While these methods can work, they often fall short in terms of efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and relationship-building potential. After evaluating the difficulty, cost, and conversion rates of traditional approaches, two stand out as the most viable and sustainable: “Leverage Your Network” and “Offer Value.” These methods focus on connecting with people you already know and providing meaningful insights or services to build trust and credibility.
However, even these strategies can feel scattered and unstructured without a clear plan to implement them consistently. That’s where the RealOffice360® approach comes in. It combines and supercharges the principles of leveraging your network and offering value into one simple, step-by-step business plan that helps agents find their first client and build a foundation for a successful real estate career.
Why Traditional Methods Fall Short
Despite their potential, traditional strategies often face significant challenges:
High Effort for Low Yield: Methods like cold calling and door knocking are time-intensive and inefficient.
Limited Reach: While leveraging your personal network is effective, it only works to a point without a structured follow-up system.
Inconsistent Results: Many traditional methods lack repeatable, scalable processes to ensure steady success.
Costly Over Time: Online ads or content marketing require ongoing investment, with no guarantee of returns.
Real Estate is a Competitive Industry: Agents often compete for the same leads, making it difficult to stand out.
Agents need a system that builds on the strengths of proven methods while overcoming their limitations. That’s exactly what RealOffice360® offers—a scientific, data-driven approach to consistently generate quality real estate clients while fostering trust and eliminating competition over the same leads.
Solution: A Proven System to Find Your First Client
The secret to finding clients in real estate lies in relationship marketing, a method that prioritizes trust and consistent connections over one-time transactions. At RealOffice360®, we’ve designed a systematic, data-driven approach that empowers agents to consistently turn contacts into clients—no matter their experience level or local market conditions.
The Cornerstone: The Home Investment Review
At the heart of our system is the Home Investment Review (HIR), a powerful yet simple tool that allows real estate agents to provide value to their network while simultaneously uncovering opportunities for transactions. Unlike traditional lead-generation strategies that rely on chasing leads or competing with other agents, the HIR focuses on building trust through meaningful conversations and by providing valuable information to clients on a yearly basis.
This approach is similar to the strategies employed by highly successful wealth management professionals. These experts focus on building lasting relationships by understanding their clients' needs and providing personalized solutions through annual portfolio reviews. In the same way, real estate agents can adopt this model to establish trust, stand out from the competition, and cultivate a loyal client base.
Backed by Data: Why It Works
The RealOffice360® approach isn’t just about intuition—it’s backed by data. According to the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), homeowners in the United States move, on average, every 10 years. This means that, statistically, 10% of homeowners will move each year. While the exact percentage may vary from market to market, 10% serves as a reliable benchmark.
Let’s break that down:
The average person knows roughly 600 people, and of these, Dunbar's Number tells us approximately 150 are close relationships within their immediate network (friends, family, acquaintances, etc.)
Based on the 10% turnover rate, approximately 15 of those individuals are likely to move this year.
With an average real estate transaction involving both a sale and a purchase, this translates to 30 potential deals annually—all from your existing network.
Now imagine leveraging this knowledge with a system like RealOffice360® that helps you consistently identify, nurture, and convert these opportunities into closed deals.
Chloe and Anne: A Story of Real Estate Success
When my daughter, Chloe, started out as a real estate agent, she had been in the industry for about a year and was on the verge of giving up. Struggling to find real estate clients, discouraged by the rejection from traditional methods, and overwhelmed by the competition, Chloe felt like real estate wasn’t the career for her. She had no idea how to attract clients or even generate real estate leads effectively.
As a seasoned real estate professional with over 30 years of experience, I recognized her struggles and stepped in to help by creating a new business plan tailored to her strengths. This relationship-driven strategy moved away from hard-selling tactics and the intense competition with aggressive agents. Instead, it centered on having meaningful conversations with homeowners, truly understanding their needs, wants, and aspirations, and providing them with valuable insights to better manage their home as a real estate investment. Through this approach, she was able to learn how to get clients by building trust and offering value. It wasn’t about selling—it was about helping.
The heart of this plan was the Home Investment Review. Chloe decided to test it first with her bookkeeper, who immediately referred her to speak with her mother, Anne. Anne was considering selling her home but wasn’t actively looking to buy. During the Home Investment Review, Chloe uncovered Anne’s goals, including her dream of retiring mortgage-free. This meeting wasn’t about selling—it was about understanding her client’s deeper needs and building trust.
What happened next was remarkable. Chloe not only helped Anne sell her condo but also found her a new home closer to her daughter. The transaction allowed Anne to retire early, achieving her long-held dream. In just one meeting, Chloe closed two deals and gained confidence in her new real estate business.
This success sparked Chloe’s journey to building a thriving, relationship-based real estate career. Today, she teaches other agents how to replicate her approach and find new clients in real estate by focusing on relationships, not transactions.
How to: Step-by-Step Guide to Your First Client
1. Build Your Contact List
Start by organizing your Sphere of Influence (SOI), which includes friends, family, and acquaintances. RealOffice360® helps you centralize and categorize your contacts into a structured, easy-to-manage database, giving you a clear foundation to identify potential clients.
2. Convert Contacts into Clients
The Home Investment Review and Client Insights are key tools for turning contacts into loyal clients. Use the Client Insights feature to gather in-depth information about your contacts’ needs, motivations, and goals. Then, conduct a Home Investment Review to provide value, showcase your expertise, and build trust through meaningful conversations. Together, these tools make the conversion process seamless and effective.
3. Stay Consistent with Communication
Building relationships requires regular, meaningful interactions. With RealOffice360®’s Virtual Assistant, you can automate follow-ups and schedule touchpoints, such as personalized updates or invitations for Home Investment Reviews. This consistency helps you stay top-of-mind and strengthens trust over time.
4. Set Achievable Goals
Establish realistic goals, like weekly goals for converting Contacts to Clients and completing a specific number of Home Investment Reviews each month. RealOffice360® makes it easy to track your progress, ensuring you maintain momentum and focus on actions that drive results.
5. Organize Your Workflow
RealOffice360® streamlines all aspects of your business, from tracking conversations to managing your sales pipeline. With a clear, organized workflow, you can spend less time on administrative tasks and more time building relationships and closing deals.
Summary: Your Best Option to Get Clients in Real Estate
Traditional methods can yield results, but they often require high effort, significant costs, and don’t always build lasting relationships. RealOffice360®’s system is different. By focusing on relationships over transactions, you not only gain trust but also create opportunities invisible to others.
Chloe’s story illustrates the true power of this approach. A single Home Investment Review helped her launch a successful real estate business, secure repeat clients, and build a sustainable model for success. The same is possible for you.
Data supports this method: Dunbar’s Number shows you already have ~150 people in your sphere, and with potentially 10% moving annually, that’s up to 30 transactions each year just by maintaining meaningful relationships.
With RealOffice360®, you’ll have the tools, strategies, and support to:
Build a consistent flow of new real estate clients.
Save time and reduce effort.
Create a saleable book of business that sustains your career or retirement.
If you’re ready to transform your real estate business, try RealOffice360® today and see the results for yourself.