Did you know that your rent roll can be a lucrative sales pipeline as a real estate agency? With the right lead generation strategies in place, your agency’s rent roll could open the doors to gathering high-intent, property sales leads. 

This isn’t as simple as waiting around for it to happen. If you don’t have the right people or systems in place, your rent roll customers could end up facing long response times and slow maintenance processes; this could lead to an increase in customer churn— or worse, not having any new customers at all.

If you’re finding it difficult to convert your rent roll into a sales-driving asset (or you’re losing potential sales to your competitors), it might be time to rethink your approach. 

Let’s run you through why prioritising great customer service is key to boosting your sales as a real estate agency, and our top tips for generating property sales leads from your rent roll.

Running a real estate business means juggling a lot of hats. As an Agency Principal, you’re responsible for building a sales pipeline, tapping into your local market and generating leads for your agency. 

But right now, property market conditions are making it tough to capture and convert sales leads. After two years of exponential price growth, Australia’s property market is softening and national median property prices have fallen 3.4% over the past quarter.

This downturn in property prices is the result of a few factors:

• Rising interest rates: after sitting at record lows of 0.1% throughout the pandemic, the RBA has been raising the official cash rate since May 2022 (now sitting at 1.85%, and expected to continue rising throughout 2022 and beyond). Banks have been passing these rate rises on to borrowers in full, meaning mortgages are now more expensive for buyers, investors and homeowners.
  
  
• Tightening lending criteria: with interest rates climbing, borrowers are finding it harder than ever to score approval for home loans. This has taken some of the heat off the market, as buyers are more cautious about overspending on their next property purchase. 
  
  
• Increasing cost of living: rising inflation has made daily expenses like utilities, groceries and even petrol more expensive than usual. Buyers are feeling the pinch, meaning they’re more cautious about how much they spend on a property purchase.
  
  

In light of these changing market conditions, homeowners are feeling less confident about listing their property for sale. This poses a challenge for sales agents in that it’s now becoming tougher to secure new listings (especially compared to the height of the market in November 2021). Plus, the potential commissions from these sales are dropping as house values decline.

The other roadblock agencies face is converting their rent roll customers into sales clients. In many cases, just a small percentage of rental roll properties will turn over into sales for an agency - this means thousands of dollars in lost commissions. 

There’s a common narrative in the real estate industry that an agency’s rent roll is a set-and-forget pipeline for their sales business. However, the data doesn’t back this up. 

So what causes rent roll customers to take their business elsewhere? The answers usually lie with your communication and customer experience: 

• Slow response times: Spending hours on emails and phone calls isn’t how investors what to be spending their spare time. Without the right systems in place, owners (and tenants!) can feel like their property manager is slacking, or worse, that their investment is not being taken seriously.
  
  
• Unhappy with how maintenance has been handled: On average, 21% of tenants are waiting over a week to receive a response from their property manager about urgent repairs. The longer it takes to receive a response, the worse the problem is likely to become (and the more expensive it will be for the owner to get it fixed).
  
  
• Not being kept in the loop during leasing: A vacant property means it’s not generating any income - this is understandably a high-stress time for owners. The last thing they want to be doing is constantly following up with their property manager to find out how open homes went and when they can expect a new tenant in their rental property.
  
  
• Poor customer service: With an industry average NPS score of -6 for real estate agencies, it’s a clear indicator that a lot needs to be fixed. Once an owner’s trust in the capabilities of their property manager is broken, they’re likely to take their business elsewhere when they’re ready to sell.

One of the biggest challenges agencies face is levelling up the experience they offer to rent roll customers.  If your agency is losing rent roll sales, the data tells us you should be looking at improving your customer experience to deliver an efficient and effective sales pipeline.

Trust is one of the most important parts of building a viable sales pipeline. As an Agency Principal, you need to ensure your property managers are able to deliver a top-notch level of service so that your rent roll is delivering property leads for your sales business.

In practice, generating leads from your rent roll boils down to three key things:

• Improving your customer relations: building long-term relationships with your rent roll customers is what will convince them to choose your agency when they’re ready to sell. That means anticipating their needs, being transparent and keeping them in the loop with the status of their property throughout every tenancy. There are many effective methods for improving your customer support, for example including live chat on your website.
  
  
• Streamlining your communications: make sure your customers know exactly who to contact for anything to do with their rental property. If a team member goes on leave, be sure to communicate this with your customers and let them know who they can liaise with during that period.
  
  
• Being proactive with maintenance and repairs: from scheduling routine inspections to booking in tradies to resolve repairs quickly, being fast and responsive is what will ensure your customers trust your agency with their biggest asset.  

With a streamlined customer experience and a proactive approach, you can win and retain the respect of your existing customers (and ensure your rent roll is pulling its weight when it comes to generating leads for property sales). 

While converting customers from your rent roll is important, it’s also crucial to market your agency efficiently to sellers in your local market. 

Here are five practical ways to drive property sales leads through smart marketing tactics:

Referrals are one of the most cost-effective ways to drive leads for your real estate business. By developing partnerships with suppliers and other service providers in your industry, you can generate low-cost, high-intent sales leads for your business.

Once a potential client has discovered your agency online, it’s time to give them a reason to contact you for more information. Motivate these possible sales leads to reach out to you by offering them something they can’t say no to.

That’s where promotional offers come in. By providing a free property value or appraisal, you can begin to build relationships with sellers in your local area. Once you’ve got their attention, you have the perfect platform to showcase your expertise and turn this opportunity into a lucrative lead for your real estate business. 

Just like building referrals through industry partnerships, building an online presence also means getting your ideal clients to visit your website.

Rather than investing hundreds of dollars into digital advertising, it’s worth building a blog on your agency’s website and sharing insightful, educational content on a regular basis. By using SEO strategies or else you can go with real estate SEO agencies to optimise your blog posts for high-intent keywords, you’ll be able to boost your visibility in your ideal client’s Google search results.

Apart from the digital benefits, blogs allow you to showcase your expertise and knowledge, helping you build credibility and trust with potential sales clients (even before you’ve had your first face-to-face meeting!). 

Social media marketing is essential for real estate agencies and property management businesses. By showing up consistently on social media, you can connect with potential sales clients in real time and generate high-value property leads for your sales business. 

From showcasing your recent sales successes to sharing testimonials from your happy clients, social media marketing is a smart way to build trust with local buyers and sellers.

Not sure where to start? Here are three ways to harness social media marketing for your agency:

• Leverage hashtags and location tags on your posts to increase your visibility with potential clients in your local area.
  
  
• Follow local community pages and local businesses in your core sales suburbs. Proactively engage with their content and audiences to build your social media presence.
  
  
• Showcase social proof and let your happy customers do the talking. By sharing sales results, testimonials and client reviews, you’re building on the value and credibility of your services.
  
  Create videos to showcase your brand. Videos are one of the best ways to engage with your audience compared to the other types of content, you can edit videos online for your real-estate business to engage with your customers.

Sharing your expertise with publications in the real estate industry is a great (and cost effective!) way to keep your agency top-of-mind with potential clients.  This kind of visibility is key to growing a healthy sales pipeline.

Consider what topics your team can weigh in on, from local market trends to tips for preparing a property for sale. Then, pitch your article ideas to media outlets in both your local area as well as industry-specific publications.

This free publicity is a powerful way to get in front of high-value clients who are thinking about selling their homes, allowing you to build a profile on these real estate websites. 

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, trust is key to turning your rent roll into a property sales pipeline. And one of the most effective ways to build trust with your clients is to offer an exceptional customer experience. 

Here at :Different, we’ve built our own rent roll from scratch over the past five years. We know what it takes to operate at scale and how to win (and retain) the trust of your customers. 

After spending years reviewing and refining our own processes, we’re now helping high-performing sales agents turn their rent rolls into lead generation assets through our new service, :Different for Agencies. 

We guide and assist our partner in streamlining their operations, refining their processes and scoring a profitable pipeline of sales leads. We don’t just make property management easy, we handle it all while you retain full ownership and score a guaranteed margin along the way. 

Are you ready to get your rent roll working as hard as you do?

Disclaimer: The information provided on this blog is for general informational purposes only. All information is provided in good faith, however, we do not account for specific situations, facts or circumstances. As such, we make no representation or warranty of any kind whatsoever, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability or completeness of any information presented.

This blog may also contain links to other sites or content belonging to or originating from third parties. We do not investigate or monitor such external links for accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability or completeness and therefore we shall not be liable and/or held responsible for any information contained therein.