Facebook Real Estate Trends and Insights Report 2019
Back in August of 2019, Facebook released the “2019 Real Estate Trends and Insights Report” to help real estate agents with Facebook marketing lead generation.
The 40-page trends and insights report provides some valuable marketing tips for real estate agents.
31 Facebook Marketing Ideas
We read the FB marketing trends report end to end and took detailed notes while adding some of our own research and ideas..
We distilled the key takeaways to added some supporting data to the concepts in the report.
Our goal is to give the best marketing ideas to help you generate real estate leads by understanding the entire homebuyer journey.
We will cover the entire home search journey from top of the funnel to the bottom. We call this the ART funnel. Use the key stages to create Facebook marketing content, videos and post.
Real Estate Buyer & Seller Trends
Consumer behavior had changed dramatically over the last 20 years starting with real estate listings being posted online.
That empowered consumers to do much of the home search themselves on their own terms on real estate IDX websites and eventually real estate portals like Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, Homes, and others.
Homebuyers now typically contact real estate agents once they have found a home they are interested in seeing.
This has forced agents to go where consumers are which is online.
It has moved 89% of the annual $14 billion real estate ad spend to online leaving only 4.8% towards newspaper advertising.
Mobile Real Estate Search Changed Everything
Just over 10 years ago another shift happened with the release of the iPhone.
Consumers had the internet in their pocket with access to real estate listings on the go. 76% of homebuyers that use mobile search apps found the homes they purchased.
Real Estate Search Apps
Real estate search then went mobile and local with the release of listing search apps from Zillow, Redfin, Trulia and Realtor.com.
These search apps know your location which simplified real estate search to a click of a button.
Now consumers have access to nearly the same real estate research tools as agents do with the MLS.
How Home Buyers Find Homes for Sale
Here are the digital online home search sources used by consumers.
- 93% of All Home Buyers Searched Online (NAR 2019 report)
- 73% real estate search on desktop / laptop computers (Zillow 2019)
- 60% on mobile websites (Zillow 2019)
- 51% on smartphone search apps
- 37% search homes on online video sites
Online to Offline Home Search
As they find homes online or using mobile apps the search moves offline.
Here are the first actions taken by homebuyers when they find a home online.
- 41% drove to home and saw the exterior of the home (NAR 2019)
- 67% ended up walking through the home they found online.
- 35% found the agent they used to search or buy a home.
- 28% requested more information about the home
- 20% pre-qualified for a mortgage online
Where Homebuyers Find the Home they Purchase
According to the National Association of Realtors 2019 research
- 50% of all buyers found the home they bought online
- 62% of 28-38yr old home buyers found the house online.
- 28% homebuyers found the home using a real estate agent
Real estate buyers using mobile real estate search apps find the homes they buy on mobile at even higher rates. Mobile apps are on a phone so they still call.
Real estate search has moved online but the offline experience is critical as get the real estate buyers get closer to buying a home.
Real Estate Yard Signs / Sign Riders Still Important
Real estate signs are the #2 source of transactions for real estate agents.
- 56% of homebuyers used open house / yard signs during search
- 7% of all homes sold from yard signs
Sign calls bridge the gap from online to offline for real estate agents and consumers. Text for info riders capture leads that may not be ready to chat.
Homebuyers find the homes online, drive the neighborhoods and call the signs to setup showings.
- 87% of all home buyers use a real estate agent.
Homebuyers Call when They Find a Home They Want to Buy
Although home buyers find the homes they buy online the majority use real estate agents during the purchase transaction. They will contact agents to setup property showings.
NAR reports the first form of contact made by homebuyers with the real estate agent they used to buy a home.
- 40% made a phone call
- 19% met them in person
- 14% via email
- 8% via contact form of 3rd party real estate site (portals)
- 6% sent a text message
- 2% via the contact form on agents web
- 2% via social media
Phone calls are the primary initial form of inquiry once a consumer finds a home.
That highlights why answering and capturing real estate phone calls from your real estate marketing is critical to real estate success.
How Buyers Found their Real Estate Agent
This brings us to full circle to the importance of Facebook marketing.
Facebook’s social network makes it easy to connect with friends, share information, and give referrals.
Top ways home buyers found their agent according to NAR.
- 41% referred by (or is) a friend, neighbor or relative
- 12% previously used the agent (this is why you must stay top of mind)
- 7% inquired about a property online (i.e. called the listing agent)
Now you understand the entire homebuyer journey from aspirational search to closing.
Let’s get into how you can leverage Facebook marketing in every step.
Why You Should Build a Large Facebook Friends List
The larger your Facebook friends list, the more audience you will have for your FB real estate marketing.
This large Facebook audience creates an exponentially larger referral network.
It also allows your Facebook posts to be seen and gain traction via viral sharing.
Remember, real estate is a relationship business. Facebook let’s your virtually scale your relationships.
Realtor Facebook Friends List Tips
- You can add up to 5,000 Facebook friends.
- Add family, friends and mutual friends first
- Add people who went to the same schools, past employers
- Add people with similar interests
- Add friends of friends
You want to focus your Facebook friends with people who you can easily build rapport with due to shared interests or friends.
- Limit the amount of other real estate agents you add to your list to out of area referral partners.
Now you will be building the relationships in your Facebook network.
Engage with Your Facebook Friends Audience
Facebook shows posts to the people you engage with the most. It’s the nature of the Facebook newsfeed algorithm.
Like, Comment, and Share Regularly
The more you engage the more the people you engage with will see your posts (and ultimately your Facebook ads).
Engage Like a Pro with Facebook Friends List
Therefore, you must engage with your new extended Facebook friends network.
Check out this post on using Facebook friends lists to learn how to quickly and effectively engage a large Facebook audience.
This brings us to the most important facts from the Facebook real estate trends and insights report.
Homebuyers (and everyone else) Spend a lot of Time on Facebook
Some key takeaways from the Facebook research report:
- Homebuyers use social for real estate inspiration, discovery, and real estate agent recommendations.
- The average home buyer spends 14 hrs a week on social media.
- 65% of homebuyers are influenced by friends’ home buying posts
- 33% of millennial first-time homebuyers starting thinking about their ability to buy a home when seeing friends’ posts
- 55% of the total time spent with media is now digital
The larger your network, the more chances people see friends buying real estate.
Real Estate FOMO is Real
Millennials (aka Echo Boomers, Gen Y) represent the largest homebuyer demographic and they get real estate “FOMO” – fear of missing out – from seeing friends posts. Interesting data from USA today article.
Pro Tip: Engage with friends of friends post about buying a home to be top of mind.
Real Estate is Influenced by Life Events and People Share Life Events on Facebook
This is another reason why Facebook is the ultimate real estate CRM.
People are sharing their life events. You must be liking, commenting and posting to increase your chances of being seen in the Facebook feed and referred.
You can quickly do this in just 10 mins a day using our Facebook friends list workflow for agents.
Use the Facebook marketing tips above to generate Facebook buyer and seller leads for free from referrals.
Facebook Real Estate Lead Generation
We give you the basic framework to generate free Facebook leads from referrals.
Now we will show you other Facebook real estate marketing tactics that are both free and paid.
Facebook Video for Generating Leads
The Facebook Real Estate Trends and Insights Report highlights video as the number one real estate marketing tool.
Why Video for Real Estate Marketing?
Here are some important video stats from the trends report.
- 83% of internet users (235.1 million people) are online video viewers
- Mobile video viewership growing the fastest amongst real estate consumers.
- 86% of prospective homebuyers would use mobile video to learn about a community they are thinking of buying in.
- Video ads are 2X more likely to create an emotional response than a static image.
- There’s also a 17% marketing multiplier effect when combine static-plus-video vs. just image only ads.
The data is so compelling that the world’s biggest real estate coach Tom Ferry is all in on video for his real estate coaching clients.
Tom Ferry Shares Real Estate Video Tips
Here’s one of the #TomFerryShow episodes focused on video tips to share on Facebook.
Here’s another great video marketing article with Tom Ferry and Steve Pacinelli of Bomb Bomb.
31 Real Estate Marketing Ideas for Facebook Live Videos
Here are some of the best Facebook live video strategies and ideas for realtors. You must create engaging content that creates curiosity, educates and provides value.
- Coming Soon – Video starts focused on your sign (to show number & branding) then to the front of the house. Don’t give the address to create curiosity and inquires.
- Open House – video inviting people to attend your open house
- Neighborhood Info – Short video talking about highlights of the community
- Client Success Stories – video sharing a story about how you helped a client who had a specific life event scenario: bankruptcy, student loans, divorce, job change, etc.
- Home Improvement Tips – share best improvements to make before selling (a good leading indicator of an upcoming seller)
- Mistakes to Avoid – share the most common mistakes people make with buying or selling
- Review of a Listing Contract – talk about the details of a listing contract
- Review of Purchase Contract – give a summary of main contract points
- What is an HOA – talk about what an HOA does and how it impacts a purchase
- Highest Priced Home in City – talk about the details highest price listing and give a deep link to your real estate IDX website
- Lowest Price Listing in the City – same as above
- Renting vs. Owning – basic education and local cost comparison to buy a vs rent the same 3/2 home in the area
- New Home Development Details – share details of local new construction
- What is a Contingency Offer – share what a continency offer is and how to insure a smooth transition
- Probate – talk about steps in selling a home in probate
- Buying a Home after Foreclosure – share details of mortgage requirements.
- Buying Real Estate after Bankruptcy – same as above
- Buying a House after Divorce – same as above
- Tax Consequences of Selling – give details of capital gains
- Short Sales – talk about the short sale process of selling a home
- Buying owner occupied 2-4 Units – talk about the ability to buy more expensive property because of rental income
- Airbnb Rules – share local rules and revenue potential
- Home Inspection Tips – what to look for in a home inspection
- Special Financing Programs – share info on the city, or state programs
- Using a Gift to Buy a home – educate how to properly get a gift down payment to buy a home
- Dog park – talk about the local dog park, events, and training
- Schools – share details about local schools
- Local Kids Sports – go to the fields and talk about local sports, seasons, costs, etc.
- Swim Schools – tour the local swim school
- Senior Care Homes – interview management at senior care homes
- Community Holiday events – video on local events, 4th of July, parades, Halloween, Xmas lights, etc.
- Buying Second Homes – details of rental income, taxes, etc of buying a second home
These are just a few ideas you can shot videos on. Everything revolves around home buying or life events that trigger real estate transactions.
Create a calendar schedule and shot them. These 31 real estate marketing ideas is enough content for 2 videos a month for a year.
Once you have shot the most important ones you can do one on local real estate market conditions.
Do Facebook Live Video to be the Local Real Estate Market Professional
According to NAR surveys, one of the most important qualities real estate consumers looks for in a realtor.
Real Estate Market is a Top Google Search Term
If you search “real estate” on Google, you will see other auto-suggested terms.
These are the most searched words and phrases related to the initial search.
You can see “Real Estate Market” is on that list.
This tells you there is a lot of demand for this information and is the reason why you should do market update videos.
How to Do a Weekly Real Estate Market Update Video
Watch this webinar with Mike Simonsen of Altos research (real estate market data provider).
You’ll learn how to get the data and quickly do weekly real estate market update videos.
Paid Facebook Video Ads from Your Real Estate Business Page
You can only run paid Facebook video ads from your Facebook business page.
If you don’t have a business page set up yet, learn how here.
You can learn how to do this from this Facebook real estate advertising professional Travis Thom.
He offers a few Facebook marketing programs such as Elevated Real Estate Marketing and AdCrate.
Facebook Call to Actions
All of your Facebook real estate marketing should have multiple call to actions.
- Invite people to text or call questions to your dedicated call capture number.
- Use a text for info system to provide more information while capturing leads.
- Setup a call to action button on your Facebook business page to capture phone calls.
- Tell people to send you Facebook messages
Use all of the above lead capture tactics in addition to the lead capture forms from the Facebook Ads themselves.
Facebook Video Ads with Lead Ad Forms
If you want to generate real estate leads with name, phone numbers and emails the best way is with Facebook lead ads.
Facebook Leads Require Long Term Lead Follow Up & Nurture
Once you capture real estate leads, you’ll need to follow up for a minimum of 5 weeks up to 1 year which is when most homebuyers end up buying.
You will need a scalable real estate lead follow up system as described by Tom Ferry in his Million Dollar Lead Follow Up Strategy.
How to Automate Lead Follow Up of Facebook Real Estate Leads
You can use intelligent marketing automation software like CallAction to automatically follow up and nurture your Facebook leads.
You can also send Facebook lead ad leads to other software via Zapier integration.
Facebook Real Estate Digital Marketing Best Practices
The real estate trends report shares some of the best practices for each Facebook ad type.
Facebook Video Ad Best Practices
Review the graphic on Facebook real estate video ads recommended practices. Learn how to create and run Facebook video ads here.
Best Practices for Facebook Stories
Both Facebook and Instagram now offer video stories. Here are the best practices according to FB along with instructions on creating a Facebook stories post.
Facebook Slideshow Ads for Real Estate
Facebook slideshow ads let you create animated ads using static images. view the best practices for real estate slideshow ads.
Facebook Instant Experiences Ads for Agents
Instant Experiences is a full-screen ad that loads instantly to capture 100% attention of the audience on mobile. Learn more about using Facebook Instant Experience Ads here.
Facebook Carousel Ads for Lead Generation
This FB ad creative is a linked series of images or videos to tell a visual story. Use these carousel ads with real estate listings to generate online leads. View best practices for FB carousel ads below.
Pro Tip: Use images of multiple houses in a carousel with deep links to your website to generate real estate leads.
Facebook Marketplace for Real Estate Listings
Agents can generate free homebuyer leads from Facebook Marketplace. Post your real estate listings to generate home buyer inquiries to your facebook messenger.
You can also use the CallAction text for info tool in the ads to generate real estate leads like you can on Craigslist.
You can also run paid ads to the Facebook Marketplace.
Professional Facebook Real Estate Lead Providers
Are you overwhelmed with the thought of running your own Facebook real estate marketing ads and campaigns?
Here are success stories of a few real estate lead generators that we integrate with that can help you.
Facebook Marketing Partners
Below is a partial list of real estate focused Facebook marketing partners from the trends and insights report.
BoomTown
CallAction has an API integration with BoomTown.
Ylopo
Our Ylopo API integration helps you generate leads from phone calls using Ylopo real estate retargeting.
Download the 2019 Facebook Real Estate Marketing Trends & Insight Report PDF
Get a PDF download of the full 2019 Facebook Marketing Trends Report
Facebook Real Estate Marketing Takeaways
There is a lot of information in this blog post. Here is a quick summary.
- Build your Facebook friends audience
- Engage using friends lists
- Share your real estate market knowledge frequently
- Leverage video to build connections, familiarity and trust
- Do Facebook live videos
- Run Facebook ads using video
- Automate your lead capture
- Have a system to follow up with your leads long-term
The Most Important Real Estate Lead Tip
Remember that the majority of the real estate consumers will call you when they are most motivated. Miss that call and you lose that sales opportunity.
Most consumers only interview one real estate agent, so you often only have one opportunity to earn their business.
Don’t waste all of your Facebook real estate marketing efforts only to miss the call and lose the opportunity. Call Action call automations help you close more deals.
Try CallAction Real Estate Automation Free for 14-Days
Need help generating or following up with your real estate leads?
Setup a free 14-day trial now or schedule a demo.
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