Real estate SMS marketing

Harness the power of SMS for real estate in your agency today. Build relationships, bolster communication, and follow up quickly. Gain an edge over your competitors with a real estate texting strategy.
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Textline’s SMS real estate solution helps realtors sell more

<span class="text-center">Closing a sale requires strong relationships and communication. While excellent communication can help turn a lead into a client, the relationship piece counts even more in real estate. When buying a new family home, office space, or investment property, buyers need to feel supported and in control. Use SMS to keep customers in the loop and show you care. From the initial inquiry to handing over the keys, 62 percent of clients prefer receiving notifications via SMS. Reach your customers how they want with Textline’s real estate SMS solution.</span>

<span class="text-center">Benefits of real estate text message marketing</span>

Higher response rates

Don’t waste time sending an unopened email or trying to call at the right time. Real estate moves fast, and your customers deserve to get information straight away.

Text messages have higher open and response rates than email, and the average text message is read within three minutes of being sent. Take advantage of texting’s sky-high engagement rates to give your real estate business a competitive edge.

With SMS you’ll likely see more replies and a higher conversion rate. Plus, SMS subscribers are typically more engaged than email subscribers.

Better client communication

Keep in touch with potential buyers and renters with an effective client communication channel. Send surveys via text, engage in two-way conversations, or broadcast mass text messages to your real estate prospects. With SMS you can reach contacts quickly, gather replies, and get feedback. Start using SMS today and enjoy the highly responsive method of communication.

Buyers report that factors such as excellent communication, friend or family referrals, and reputation helped them select a realtor. SMS is a great way for realtors to improve communication, solicit referrals, and get reviews to build reputation. As a result, consider using SMS to help your business build reputation and a great customer communication experience. 

It’s affordable

With low costs per conversion and higher engagement rates, real estate text messaging is an affordable communication tool. High ROI means your communication costs are lower per sale. Textline is an excellent, low-cost option for real estate businesses like yours.

SMS is personal

Like a friendly smile, a personalized follow-up text message adds a personal touch to your outreach. Sending upcoming event reminders, letting your potential buyers know about new listings first, or sending a happy holidays text can foster better relationships with your clients. 

Texting is a more natural and friendly way of communicating than professional methods like email. You can also use GIFs or emojis to communicate in a fun way with your clients.

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How real estate text marketing works

What’s one key to great relationships? A strong communication strategy. Discover how business SMS can help your organization improve client communication. Plus, SMS marketing can help real estate companies like yours build an engaged prospect list and close more deals.

Build a list of prospects

The first step in text marketing is to create a list of SMS subscribers. There are many ways to build this list of potential clients to text, but the key is to ask them for permission to stay compliant. You could ask for written permission, create a clickable opt-in button on a website form fill, or offer a text-to-join campaign. You could also encourage opt-ins by sending an email to your existing marketing lists. 

The key is you want to first build a list of contacts who opted in. Once they give that consent, they're most likely engaged and active prospects. After creating an SMS contact list, you can segment it by location or property type. This contact information is then stored in Textline’s encrypted and secure system.

By nurturing and building a contact list, your SMS communications can reach prospects at the right time to push them down the real estate sales funnel. 

Engage in one-on-one conversations with potential clients 

Use two-way messaging to engage in one-to-one text conversations with potential buyers, sellers, and renters to keep them engaged and interested. Text conversations allow you to quickly reach clients and add a personal touch. 

Use SMS to follow up with leads or better understand what clients are looking for in their next rental or purchase. Check up on unresponsive clients to share market updates, helpful announcements, or new listings. 

SMS can also help you schedule showings and cut no shows. For example, let your contacts book viewings via SMS and send text reminders about these upcoming meetings. You could even use SMS to send seasonal greetings or birthday messages to provide an exceptional personal experience that brings customers back. 

If this communication sounds daunting, it’s not with Textline’s real estate SMS solution. You can use Automations to deploy messages automatically and reduce the communications burden on your team. You can also create a collection of text message templates to help you communicate with clients faster and set up out-of-office messages.

Text marketing use cases for real estate

Stand out from the crowd with a comprehensive real estate texting strategy using Textline. Discover how realtor businesses like yours use text messages to convert more leads into homebuyers.

Promote new property listings

Send new property listings to local contacts to generate interest or let clients know when the price of a home drops. Segment your contact list by property type or neighborhood, so your messages get seen by the right people. Promote new property listings with Textline and increase the chances of finding the right buyer.

Send reminders for open house showings

Invite your contacts to open house events via text message. Schedule automated reminders to send in the lead-up to the big day to boost the number of visitors. You can also use SMS to send attachments like brochures or other additional information after the open house. This allows you to follow up to keep them engaged and adds a personal touch.

Send templated messages about properties

Save time when contacting leads by creating real estate SMS templates. Create a text template for a new listing, an open house, or a reduced-price property. After creating a template, it’s easy to customize and send out your message in just a few clicks. It saves you time because you won’t need to continuously type new messages from scratch. 

With Textline, you can re-use your template. This makes communicating critical information to your potential buyers easier and quicker.

Recruit new realtors

Real estate text messages aren’t just for sales. Use your SMS system to manage recruitment and build relationships with potential new realtors. Invite job applicants to interviews, remind them of upcoming deadlines, or screen applicants via SMS. 

Textline streamlines communication with our central SMS dashboard. This makes it easy for your team to keep track of inbound and outbound conversations no matter the use case.

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Why real estate agents should text

33%

of Americans prefer texts to other forms of communication. — Pew Research Center

45%

is the average text response rate, about eight times the email response rate. — Velocify

66%

of Americans check their phones 160 times daily. — Small Business Trends

A stress-free phone number registration process for real estate

In 2023, mobile carriers mandated phone number registration for businesses wanting to text customers. This rule change was issued to combat spam texting and make business texting trustworthy. Registration requires firms to submit information about their brand and SMS use cases for vetting.

Ensure you get your phone number properly registered to text with Textline. We make it hassle-free for real estate professionals. With Textline, you can register in the app by filling out our pre-built compliance forms. Textline even submits this registration application on your behalf.

While waiting for your phone number to be ready, you can test Textline features, set up automations, and create text message templates. Take the stress out of phone number registration with Textline.

<span class="text-center">Real estate SMS marketing tips</span>

<span class="text-center">Want to get the best out of your Textline solution? Here are our expert tips to make the most of your SMS marketing efforts.</span>

Add a personal touch

Customers want to know they’re talking to a real person, so keep your real estate text messages personalized. Write messages that include their name or something you know about them. Ask them how they are, prove you’re listening, and be kind.  

With Textline, you can even send GIFs, emojis, or images to make your messages stand out. You also could send a "welcome to your new home" message on their move-in day. SMS messages allow your business to go the extra mile for your customers.

Keep messages short and sweet

Remember, no one has time to read that lengthy email message. SMS is effective because it’s short, concise, and to the point. This means your leads can read and respond fast. As a result, make sure to keep your messages short. Take advantage of the two-way message to engage your leads in a genuine back-and-forth conversation.  

Provide value with each message

While it’s clear that short messages get the best open and engagement rates, ensure that each message you send contains relevant information. Messages that add value are seen as necessary and important by your audience. On the other hand, messages that contain no relevant information will likely make potential customers opt out of messages. 

With each message, be sure to include the reason for your message or a specific call-to-action. For example, if you’re inviting customers to an open house, make that clear in the message. Let potential property buyers understand why you’ve contacted them and what they should do next.

<span class="text-center">Real estate SMS FAQs</span>

Is SMS marketing legal for real estate?

Yes, SMS real estate marketing is legal.

Like any form of business communication, there are regulations that real estate agents must follow when using SMS marketing software. This includes listening to federal and state regulators like the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Committee. Regulations that businesses must follow include the CAN-SPAM Act and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

Textline takes compliance seriously. We have extensive experience ensuring messages sent from our platform are legal and abide by regulations. We help your business adapt to this new method of communication.

Why do realtors use SMS to communicate with potential buyers?

SMS real estate messages help realtors and agents reach their customers faster, gather more responses, and turn more leads into customers. Realtors send clients messages to build relationships and help property buyers navigate the home-buying process.

Do home buyers prefer text over email?

In general, studies show that homebuyers prefer to receive personalized SMS messages from their real estate agent over other forms of communication. Sending an SMS message is fast, visible immediately, and accessible to anyone with a cell phone. In other words, there’s no need to log in to a website or download an app to get the real estate message.

Plus, text messaging is a much faster and convenient method of communication. Emails may be unread for many days, direct mail takes time to be delivered, and a phone call won’t always be answered. Property buyers need information to make decisions fast and often prefer to be contacted via SMS.

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Why real estate customers trust Textline

We are confident that Textline is the best texting software for businesses. Although it takes some time to learn the ropes, the results are worth the effort. Textline has great value in its adaptability with many businesses and its stellar customer support team.

— Verified Reviewer, Capterra

Textline's service is reasonably priced and their support team is very responsive. We've never had an issue with texts not getting to our clients or clients not being able to respond. Its simplicity is perfect for our needs.

— Genevieve M., Capterra

Overall very good... must-have for business, good for texting employees and customers. I like resolving conversations... keeps things nice/clean and you know what items are still pending if they are still open. It's like email almost.. is very nice.

— Tom B., Capterra
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Additional resources for real estate professionals

Textline integrations to help you work smarter

Connect Textline to your real estate firm's tools to help you work smarter. Integrations allow data flow between platforms for instant and targeted SMS communication.

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How to get started with Textline

Get started now with real estate SMS marketing via Textline. Join thousands of other realtors across the country who are using SMS to increase conversions and build great homebuyer relationships. Take advantage of two-way texting, automation features, surveys, and more from one centralized dashboard. With Textline’s real estate text message solution, it’s easy to reach buyers with important messages wherever they are. Contact our expert team today to book your demo and discover how Textline can add a competitive advantage to your real estate business.

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Still have questions? Text us: +1 415-849-4349 or contact us here.