A buyer who needs a mortgage in principle today
A buyer views a house on Saturday and wants to make an offer. The estate agent asks whether they have a mortgage in principle. They do not, so the agent passes their details to you, by text to the broker they know, or by email to the office.
The broker is in meetings all Saturday afternoon. The email sits in the shared inbox until Monday. By then the buyer has spoken to their bank, or a broker their friend recommended, and the agent wonders why they bother passing leads to you.
Why agent leads go cold
Agent leads are urgent in a way most enquiries are not. The buyer has a property in mind and a seller waiting. But leads arrive through informal channels, often to one person, and outside normal hours. There is no system catching them.
Agents also have no visibility. Once they pass a lead, they cannot see whether the buyer was called, so they cannot tell their vendor with any confidence whether the buyer is progressing.
- Leads arrive by text, email, WhatsApp and phone calls.
- Often sent to one broker, not the team.
- Weekends and evenings are when buyers are most active.
- No automatic acknowledgement to the buyer.
- Agents never hear whether their buyer was contacted.
Inside the brokerage, nobody owns the lead until a broker picks it up. If the text went to a broker who is on holiday, or the email landed in an inbox checked twice a day, the lead can sit untouched without anyone knowing it exists.
What slow response costs
| Delay | Likely outcome |
|---|---|
| Contact within the hour | Buyer engaged, agent reassured |
| Contact next day | Buyer may have spoken to someone else |
| Contact after the weekend | Buyer often lost, agent less likely to refer |
| No update to agent | Agent's confidence in the relationship falls |
Estate agent partnerships are valuable and fragile. Agents talk to several brokers, and they send buyers to whoever looks after them best. Missed leads show up not as one lost case but as fewer referrals over the following months.
The lead intake we build
- Agents get a simple way to pass a lead: a short web form, a dedicated email address or a text number, whichever they prefer.
- Every lead is logged in your CRM with the agent, branch, property and buyer details.
- The buyer immediately receives a message from your brokerage, introducing the broker and offering a booking link for a call, including evening and weekend slots if you offer them.
- The lead is routed to an available broker under rules you set, such as by agent, area or rota, with a reminder if it is not picked up.
- Agents receive agreed updates, such as contacted and decision in principle obtained, limited to what the buyer has agreed to share.
- A report shows leads by agent and branch, time to first contact and how many went on to apply.
After it goes live
Buyers hear from you within minutes, even at the weekend, and can book a time that suits them. Brokers see new leads in one place. Agents know their buyers are being looked after, which makes them more willing to pass on the next one. And the owner can see which agent relationships are producing business.
Leads that do not progress are still recorded, with the reason, which is useful when the buyer comes back months later.
Brokers also go into the first call better prepared. The buyer can complete a short fact find from the acknowledgement message, so the call starts with the property, the deposit and the timeline already known.
Does this happen at your brokerage?
- Agent leads arrive by text to individual brokers.
- Weekend leads wait until Monday.
- Buyers get no acknowledgement until a broker calls.
- Agents ask whether you contacted their buyer.
- You cannot report on leads by agent.