How Can I Use AI to Generate Real Estate Leads?

In today’s market, generating quality leads is more competitive than ever. Traditional methods—cold calling, cold mailing, and open houses—are still effective, but they can be often hit-or-miss. Basically, you have less control over a cold mailing campaign. 

Enter artificial intelligence (AI), a game-changing tool that is reshaping how real estate professionals find, nurture, and convert leads into clients. You can actually use AI to generate leads for your real estate company (or any business you have.)

In this article, I’ll explore the top AI-powered tips and tools that are helping real estate professionals stay ahead of the competition. I will be talking to expert investors who are using AI to connect with the right audience.

How to Find Motivated Sellers Using AI in the Real Estate Sector? 

Many real estate investors struggle with lead generation. In my personal experience, finding motivated leads (or off-market deals) is a crucial step for success. As the saying goes, you make money when you acquire the property. 

The question is: how can you use AI to locate motivated sellers in your area? In a discussion with Joe Stance from Stance Commercial Real Estate, he outlined several ideas for us to review. 

We generate real estate leads by using AI. We use tools like Reonomy and Showcase to get details and property ownership data. We can track:

• Tends in property transactions
• Lease rates
• Market developments 

After that, we can pinpoint undervalued opportunities and reach out to motivated sellers.

For example, we analyzed historical sales data for a strip mall. Our analysis revealed that properties sell 20–30% below market value when the owners are facing financial difficulties. Our team utilized public records to find a distressed seller in a similar position and secured the listing. We sold the property for a price that satisfied the seller but still offered the buyer significant upside potential. The data and pattern recognition made that lead possible.  

Danny Colacicco from Panda Pro Home Buyers emphasized the same. 

“We use AI predictive analysis to generate leads for our real estate company. We can analyze data from multiple sources, such as property records, social media activity, and online search behavior. From the data, AI can accurately identify potential leads who are most likely to be interested in buying or selling a property. This allows real estate professionals to target their marketing efforts toward these specific individuals, who are likely to convert.”

What do you think about human experts? You got that deal through AI, but how did your expertise play a differentiating factor? 

Joe Stance replied that while AI and algorithms can streamline the lead generation process, human judgment is still crucial. While software provides data points and indicators, our experienced agents evaluate those leads to determine ones with the highest potential. We’ve found that combining AI and human expertise produces the best results. 

Overall, integrating data-driven insights and algorithms into our lead generation strategy has increased our pipeline by over 40% this year. The key is choosing tools that improve human capabilities rather than replace them.

How to Use Chatbots for Your Real Estate Business? 

Gather Some Quality Information

Keith Saint CEO of Sell Mobile Home Park, told me about a popular (yet slightly ignored) use of AI in the real estate sector. 

“Chatbots, which leverage AI, are among my favorite tools for lead generation. Popular chatbots can gather information from prospects and give them relevant property listings. 

For example, I had a chatbot set up on my real estate website that would engage with visitors and ask them questions about their ideal property. This AI-powered chatbot was able to gather valuable information such as budget, desired location, and specific features they were looking for in a property. With this information, the chatbot would then automatically send personalized property recommendations to the prospects. 

This not only saved me time from manually gathering information from each lead but also helped me target potential clients with properties that met their specific criteria. Additionally, because the chatbot was available 24/7, it allowed me to capture leads even when I wasn’t actively working on my website.”

How to Filter and Nurture Leads Using AI?

Sebastian Jania explains how their company (Alberta Property Buyers) is now generating more leads thanks to using AI. 

“We are using AI for filtering our real estate leads and following up with them via text and email through Go High Level. Previously, when we were running Facebook ads to generate off-market motivated sellers, we had some challenges as we had to go through a lot of leads to find one that was ready to sell right now. Further, this meant that we would spend a lot more time filtering, and our conversion rates were 1/25 compared to 1/10 with SEO leads; due to these stats and the difficulty of finding truly motivated Facebook leads, we simply stopped running Facebook ads. 

With AI, we’ve been able to filter through leads, nurture them, and then schedule our acquisition reps with the most motivated leads, ultimately reducing the time we spend on unmotivated leads and maximizing the time we spend talking to motivated leads.

This, in turn, has led to an increase in the number of qualified offers we make each week, and it has also enabled us to scale further as the AI tools act as virtual lead managers, assisting us in filtering and following up with sellers.”

It looks like most people are interested in using AI for lead generation. We have another expert joining the conversation here. 

Should You Integrate AI into Your Existing CRM for Lead Generation?

Yes! 

Yancy Forsythe from Missouri Valley Homes believes AI can bring a level of effectiveness to your lead generation efforts. 

“We’ve integrated AI into our CRM system. It helps us analyze data to identify high-potential leads and automate follow-ups. One of our favorite AI-driven tools is REsimpli. We can streamline the lead generation process by sorting through data quickly and targeting the most relevant prospects. The AI helps us understand which leads are more likely to convert based on their behaviors and interactions with our marketing campaigns. So far, we’ve seen tangible results: faster lead qualification and better targeting, which has improved our overall conversion rates.”

How is Using AI Beneficial for Everyone? 

As I talk to real estate experts, I can see a pattern here. Using AI to generate leads is the focus here. Businesses want to reach a broad audience, and AI can help you generate real estate leads.

Many of us were limited because we don’t know much about our customers. If you can get access to social media activity and online searches, a whole new world opens up. You can now study stress patterns. You can study behaviors and work with individuals who are actually interested in your service. That’s the most positive use of AI I have seen in a while. It lets you market to the right audience. Actually, it’s a win-win for everyone. 

How Real Estate Investors are Generating Business Leads?

I talked to 4 successful investors to see how they have gotten leads in the past. Most investors use multiple marketing channels, and many are relying on AI. AI is relatively new, and the real estate industry can sound old-fashioned. 

Perhaps this is because people still prefer to trust humans when conducting real estate transactions. This is why “word-of-mouth marketing” is a common theme in my discussion. You will see synonyms of the same word, i.e., referrals, networking, meetups, and events. 

All these words share the same concept. Connect with real folks, build trust, and you will see a line of clients ready to work with you. Let’s give the stage to our experts who contributed to this section. 

Local Networking Events 

Our team member secured a fixer-upper property by attending a real estate meetup group. The deal was off-market and hadn’t appeared on any public listing sites. 

Personally speaking, I am a local chamber of commerce member. Through my connections, I came across a business owner who was looking to sell property due to financial constraints. This led to a successful acquisition of the property at a discounted price.

Darcy Turner, Acquisition Manager, Investor Home Buyers

In terms of personal experience, I remember one particular workshop I hosted on rental property investing. During the event, I shared my own success story and provided practical tips for finding profitable rental properties. As a result, several attendees approached me after the event with potential investment opportunities, and some even became long-term clients.
Hosting seminars in the investing niche has made me an industry expert, and it also attracts individuals who are actively looking to invest in real estate. 

Zach Shepard, Principal, Braddock Investment Group, Inc

Use Inbound Leads

The best lead-generation source has been inbound leads coming through my website via organic search. By focusing on SEO and creating content that speaks directly to sellers looking for a fast, hassle-free cash sale, I’ve attracted highly qualified prospects. This approach is cost-effective and long-lasting, allowing me to generate a steady stream of motivated sellers without relying on expensive ads.

One unconventional but surprisingly effective lead channel for me has been placing “We Buy Houses” signs in local pawn shops. I pay the pawnshop owners a fee for each lead they generate. This tactic taps into a segment of sellers who may need to sell quickly due to financial constraints—an audience that’s often overlooked.

Brett Johnson, Owner, New Era Home Buyers

Optimizing client websites and profiles increased lead volume by 30% last year. One client’s inquiries tripled after we revamped their site and ran a targeted social media campaign.
More uniquely, I’ve found success with guest blogging for industry publications. Writing an expert article on selling multifamily properties resulted in a 50% increase in calls from readers interested in selling apartments. And sponsoring a popular real estate podcast drove a landslide of new leads, with one client’s calls jumping 80% the following week.

Joe Stance, Owner, Stance Commercial Real Estate

Overall, the key for real estate investors is testing various channels to find what works, then doubling down on the most effective strategies. With the right digital marketing plan customized for each client, growth and success real estate investors only dreamed of can become reality.