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Getting new seller leads from viewings
6 min readUpdated
Someone viewing a home sometimes has to sell their own house or arrange a mortgage first. A short post-viewing survey of three to five questions shows who that is. Ask for permission to make contact, send the survey within a day, and follow up only on what the viewer has indicated themselves.
Why a viewer can be a seller lead
A viewer is a potential buyer, but sometimes a seller as well. Homeowners moving on have to sell their current home before they can buy, and they choose an estate agent to do it. The agency that has just shown them round a property already has a seat at the table.
In practice, that information stays in the head of the agent who did the viewing. Sometimes it comes up at the front door, often not. A survey makes it visible to the whole agency, even if the viewer doesn't buy the property.
You only know how many of your viewers still have to sell when you ask. Count it for a quarter; that figure determines how much effort this is worth.
Which questions to ask
A good post-viewing survey asks five questions at most, and every question has a purpose. Start with the property itself, so the rest doesn't feel like a sales pitch.
| Question | Answer options | What it produces |
|---|---|---|
| What did you think of the property? | score plus open field | feedback for the seller |
| Do you own a home that you still need to sell? | yes, no, not sure yet | possible seller lead |
| When do you want to move? | within 3 months, 3 to 12 months, later | urgency and timing of the follow-up |
| Is your financing already arranged? | yes, partly, no | possible mortgage lead |
| May we contact you about your situation? | tick per topic | permission for follow-up |
The first question has a second function. The seller of the property wants to know what viewers thought, and these answers give you that feedback in writing.
Leave out questions you won't use. If you ask about budget while nobody does anything with it, you make the survey longer without gaining anything.
When to send the survey
Send the survey on the day of the viewing or the following morning. The property is still fresh in the viewer's mind, and they are still busy with their moving plans.
Send one reminder at most, a few days later. More reminders for a survey that gives the viewer nothing feel like pressure.
After a second viewing of the same property, a new survey makes little sense. By then an offer is more likely than a questionnaire, and the agent is already in conversation.
Consent and GDPR in plain language
Ask explicitly for permission before you approach a viewer about anything other than the property they viewed. In practice, that means:
- State at the top, in one sentence, why you are asking these questions and what you will do with the answers.
- Ask for consent per topic: contact about selling, contact from a mortgage adviser, a newsletter. No pre-ticked boxes.
- Name who receives the data if you refer the viewer to an adviser.
- Make it easy to withdraw consent later.
- Don't keep the answers longer than you need them.
This is not legal advice. Have the survey text and the privacy statement checked by whoever handles privacy at your agency. The principle is simple: the viewer must know in advance what happens to their answers.
Following up without being pushy
Follow up only on what the viewer has indicated themselves, and time it to match their answer. A viewer who wants to move in a year is not waiting for a phone call tomorrow.
| Answer | Next step |
|---|---|
| Needs to sell, moving within 3 months, contact agreed | The branch agent calls within two working days and offers a valuation |
| Needs to sell, moving later | Passed on to your marketing platform for periodic contact, provided consent was given |
| Financing not arranged, contact from an adviser agreed | Referred to the mortgage adviser, with the answers attached |
| No contact wanted | Use only the feedback on the property |
For every lead, record that it came from a viewing, and from which one. Then you can later see which properties and which branches produced the most new instructions. For referrals to an adviser, it pays to agree the commission and the feedback in advance; see referring leads to your mortgage adviser.
What to measure
Measure the survey as an ordinary lead source, using the same yardsticks as your website or your campaigns. Three figures are enough to start with:
- The response rate: completed surveys divided by surveys sent.
- The number of seller and mortgage leads per hundred viewings.
- The number of signed sales instructions that came from those leads.
The third figure takes time. A viewer who wants to move in a year may only sign after twelve months. So count by month of viewing, not by quarter of signing. How to compare sources that way is covered in which lead source wins instructions.
For this, KeyVue has a viewer portal with a survey that turns the answers into new seller and buyer leads, with the source attached. It is a module at €50 per month excluding VAT; more on the product page. How VLIEG Makelaars put it to work across ten branches is in our customer stories.
Frequently asked questions
Ask five questions at most: what the viewer thought of the property, whether they still need to sell a home of their own, when they want to move, whether their financing is arranged, and whether you may contact them about it. Every question should lead to feedback for the seller or a concrete next step.
Yes, if the viewer gave permission in advance and knows what happens to their data. Ask for consent per topic, without pre-ticked boxes, and make withdrawal easy. Have the exact wording checked by whoever handles privacy at your agency.
Send the survey on the day of the viewing or the following morning, while the property is still fresh in the viewer's mind. After that, send one reminder at most. After a second viewing of the same property, a new survey makes little sense, because the agent is already in conversation.
Read also
- The quarterly report for an estate agency with multiple branchesWhich figures belong on the table when you have more than one branch.Read more
- New branch or acquisition? A strategic trade-off for estate agency groupsFour growth routes side by side: what they cost, what they demand and when each one fits.Read more