Real estate farming is a lead generation strategy designed to position you as an area’s go-to agent using high-quality marketing targeted to homeowners in a specific neighborhood. Done successfully, you can capture 30%+ of all sales in your target area and establish a reliable source of annual income. Want to become your neighborhood’s go-to agent?
If so, farming is a must-have strategy for you. Its goal is to consistently deliver value and showcase your market expertise in your farm area. In this article, we’ll walk you through our detailed farming strategy, outline the tools you’ll need to get started, and make suggestions for where you’ll find the best marketing materials to dominate your farm area.
Looking to go even deeper? We created the Ultimate Real Estate Farming Strategy Guide for those who want to jump in headfirst. Download the guide today for your comprehensive, proven resource for all things farming.
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Real Estate Farming 101: Basic Strategy + Cost to Get Started
1. Target the Right Neighborhood
The success of your real estate farming operation depends on choosing the right area. A good farm is 500 homes or less. Choose a place where there’s healthy demand (a good absorption rate) and where homes are being listed for sale at a solid clip (a good turnover rate). Ideally, choose a place where you’ve got some name recognition and some built-in expertise.In our Ultimate Real Estate Farming Strategy Guide, we’ve got all the tools you need to choose the right farm area. We’ll show you how to calculate absorption and turnover rates, and give you tips on conducting geographic, demographic, and property research.
2. Plan How & When to Deliver Value to Your Farm
Agents crushing the real estate farming game are delivering consistent value to homeowners in their farm areas. The key to this step is to plan the “what,” “when,” and “how” in advance. That way, you can reserve your precious face-time for client conversations that will move your prospects closer to a transaction.
Examples of successful real estate farming outreach include postcards, market updates, social media groups, and neighborhood websites. Create a calendar with each message you’re planning to send, and note what value it will provide to your audience. How does it contribute to your overall goals? Use our content calendar planning page in our Strategy Guide to help you map out your outreach.
If you don’t know where to get started with the neighborhood website, we suggest Parkbench. With a Parkbench website, you can create an online space where community members can get information about local events, news, neighborhood happenings, and of course, real estate—all brought to them by you, their go-to resource.
See if Your Farm Area Is Available
3. Make a Plan to Manage & Track Your Leads
Your real estate farming leads are distinct from the types of leads you get from Zillow Premier Agent or the home valuation landing page on your website. The contacts you make in your farm area result from your consistent effort to build relationships with people in your area. Those efforts are tied to the budget and time you allocate to farming.
To save you time, opt for a solid real estate customer relationship manager (CRM) that helps you tag farm contacts, automate digital communication like email or text messages, and create a record of the value you’ve delivered over the life of your farm. Plus, a CRM provides an easy system to track every reply and ensure you promptly follow up on every point of contact.
Our choice for the best real estate CRM for 2021 is LionDesk, but you can check out all our top picks in our guide: The Best Real Estate CRM for 2021: In-depth Reviews & Pricing.
4. Execute Your Plan: Start Delivering Value!
You’ve done all the prep work, and now it’s time to execute. You’ve chosen the right farm area, made a plan to deliver consistent, long-term value, and set up a system to help you manage and track your interactions. Now, it’s time to set your automated communication plans in motion and start the clock on the high-touch outreach you’ll do to follow up with your postcards, social posts, and market updates.
Successful real estate farming is a combination of long-term automated communication and smart, day-by-day, personal follow-up. If you treat farming as a set-it-and-forget-it strategy, you won’t be as effective. Be active in the communities you’re serving, and your clients (and your wallet!) will thank you!
Real Estate Farming: Cost to Get Started
You can expect upfront costs for effective real estate farming, but the returns will repay your investment many times over if you can stick with it.
Typical annual costs for a real estate farming operation with 250 homes would look like this:
Annual Real Estate Farm Cost: 250 Homes
| Regularly Scheduled Postcards (250 x 8 = 2,000) | $1,260 |
| Property Status Update Postcards (200 / month x 12 months = 2,400) | $1,584 |
| Regularly Scheduled Quarterly Letters (250 x 4 = 1,000) | $550 |
| Door Hangers for Your Annual Door-knocking Session (250) | $100 |
| Neighborhood Website (Try Parkbench) | $3,500 |
| Farm-specific Content for Your Website | FREE |
| One Sponsored Event | $1,000 |
| Total | $7,994 |
While this is a sizable investment, don’t forget to look at the upside. If you’re farming a neighborhood where the typical home sells for $400,000, a single 3% commission is worth $12,000 in gross commission income (GCI).
A single property sale will likely recuperate all your investment and then some. If you’re turning over three or four transactions a year from your farm area, the positive return on investment (ROI) is clear.
Essential Real Estate Farming Tools You Need
Real estate farming requires a high level of organization, a solid plan for execution, and, of course, the tools you’ll need to consistently deliver value to your farm area. While these tools could include anything that will get your message to your audience, here are the approaches we’ve found work best for real estate farming.
Regularly Scheduled Real Estate Postcards & Flyers
Typical Annual Cost (250 homes): $1,260
Our Suggested Provider: LabCoat Agents
The Close Resource: Top 5 Real Estate Postcards Providers + Postcard Examples That Actually Work
(Source: LabCoat Agents)
Details: The backbone of your farming campaign is your real estate farming postcards and flyers. These are ideal tools to convey messages, statistics, and authority to your farm area. Use them to deliver a quarterly snapshot of the market, recipes, or sports schedules—ANYTHING that will provide value to your recipients.
On-demand Postcards, Prompted by Market Activity
Typical Annual Cost (250 homes): $1,584
Our Suggested Provider: Postcard Mania, LabCoat Agents, or ProspectsPLUS!
The Close Resource: Circle Prospecting Case Study
(Source: LabCoat Agents)
Details: If you think about your regularly scheduled postcards as a dependable, professional handshake, the on-demand postcards you send out when there’s market activity in your farm area is the unexpected high-five. Make homeowners aware of market activity in their community, especially after a property sells. Sending about 50 postcards to homes that are similar to active listings and sales in your area is a wake-up call to homeowners. You’ll be providing them with valuable information and insight into what their financial opportunity could be if they decide to sell, as well.
Look for spikes in your home valuation landing pages on your real estate website after these postcards go out.
Farm-specific Content on Your Website
Typical Annual Cost: Free (as long as you have a website)
Our Suggested Provider: Real Geeks or Placester
The Close Resource: Real Geeks Review, Placester Review
Details: Your farm area should have a dedicated section on your website where you can post weekly updates about the micro-neighborhood market, goings-on in the neighborhood, and even events of interest to community members in and around town. Your content can be short and sweet, with five or six sentences and a picture. It serves two purposes: to act as an online hub for your neighborhood to stop by and see what’s going on, and to show potential buyers interested in purchasing in your chosen area that you’re the go-to expert when they are ready to buy.
(Source: Page shown is from a Placester website template)
Complete Market Update Letters
Typical Annual Cost: $550
Our Suggested Provider: You!
The Close Resource: 17 Best Real Estate Prospecting Letter Templates of 2021
(Source: Hawaii Life)
Details: The real estate letter is an ideal way share market deep-dives since you have more space for in-depth thought and analysis. Talk about what’s going on in your business or give shoutouts to those doing good works in the community. Share messages that communicate to your farm that you’re the expert when it comes to buying and selling homes and LIVING in your community. We’ve pulled together 17 real estate prospecting letter templates as a helpful resource for your prospecting venture. Check it out and start upping your prospecting game today.
Pro tip: Farming a high-end neighborhood? Consider handwriting those letters. Yes, it will be time-consuming, but the personal touch provided will pay off in spades with discerning sellers.
Parkbench Neighborhood Website
Typical Annual Cost: Starting at $3,500
Our Suggested Provider: Parkbench
The Close Resource: How Parkbench Helps Agents Drive Community Connections
Details: Collecting and communicating information that your farming community wants to know about is the best way to use a neighborhood-specific website. Detail local events and include interviews with local business owners, local news, coupons, and, of course, all the latest information about the real estate market. Some people won’t visit your personal website because they perceive it to be about you, but a website focused on their neighborhood is about them, making it more palatable. As mentioned earlier, our suggestion for this sort of platform is Parkbench. Power-users of Parkbench are posting weekly content (if not more often). However, posting once or twice a month is a great first effort for agents just getting started on the platform.
Door Hangers for Your Annual Door-knocking Session
Typical Annual Cost: $100
Our Suggested Provider: Vistaprint
The Close Resource: Door Knocking for Real Estate in 2021: Will It Still Work? (+ Tips & Scripts)
Details: Your farming efforts will be significantly more effective if you’re intentional about getting face-to-face with the people in your farm. Door-knocking isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but remember, you’re not going into these walks around the neighborhood cold. By the time you kick off your door-knocking weekend, neighborhood residents will have heard from you multiple times. They know you, even though they don’t know you yet, and they should be familiar with the value you’ve provided so far. Door-knocking takes practice, a little bit of courage, and most of all, consistent effort. Don’t call it quits until you get through your entire farm. We promise that the last 50 doors you knock on will be a lot easier than the first 50.
Materials for Your Annual Sponsored Event
Typical Annual Cost: $1,000
Our Suggested Provider: You!
Details: Whether you’re sponsoring the annual neighborhood garage sale or throwing a summer block party and BBQ, events are a fun way to meet and greet community members. People gravitate to fun events happening within walking distance of their homes. They’re also fantastic means of building on your authority in your community. Show your community you aren’t active just for business reasons—you’re a part of the happenings that your community connects with every year.
Start with something you know will be a hit if you’re new to event sponsorship, like a free pumpkin giveaway in October. Sponsor a neighborhood garage sale, a community fireworks display in July, or a Christmas tree giveaway in December.
Wait, What About Social Media for My Real Estate Farming?
Social media can be a powerful tool for real estate farming. Many local neighborhoods have their own Facebook groups, and homeowner associations (HOAs) have dedicated websites and social profiles. Of course, the members of your farming community are likely to be personally active on social platforms.
The Close contributor and real estate coach Sean Moudry of 16Strategies suggests connecting with members of your farm area using your personal social media profile. Then, create a custom audience for specific posts that include only the people in your farm. Sean’s strategy helps promote your Parkbench website and any neighborhood-specific web content you’ve created to your target audience more efficiently.
Real Estate Farming FAQs
Still got some questions? Don’t worry. We’ve got answers. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about real estate farming.
Why should my real estate farm be 500 homes or less?
When it comes to real estate farming, bigger is not always better. In fact, it rarely is. Real estate farming is an effective marketing strategy because you target a specific set of homes with a message that adds particular value. The bigger that selection of homes, the less likely you are to deliver messages that appeal to all of them. Keep your farm small so you can focus your message and deliver more value.
How much of my real estate farming message should be about the local real estate market?
Market conditions and specific statistics can be powerful conversation starters in your real estate farm. However, these types of messages can get boring pretty quickly for anyone who’s not actively ready to buy or sell. So, we suggest using the same rule you’d use for social media marketing: Make 30% of your message about the market and the rest about the community.
What kind of results should I expect from my real estate farm?
Successful real estate farms yield around 30% of the transactions from a particular area. Of course, every market is different. Your success depends on area-specific information, including the types of homes in the market, the sort of agent competition you’re facing in your particular farm, and how long you’ve been active in the area. The successful farming agents we’ve spoken to say they consistently capture between 20 and 30% of the transactions in their area annually.
How long does it take for a real estate farm to yield results?
Real estate farming is not an overnight success strategy. Though you may see some exciting immediate returns on your efforts, the leads you capture in the first three months from your farm are likely people who were ready to pull the trigger on buying or selling anyway. You just happened to get them the right message at the right time. True farming success takes time. Give yourself a year with this strategy before measuring your results.
Are there real estate farming companies that will execute my strategy for me?
Through our research, we’ve only found one reputable company specializing in farm strategy execution—a company called Geographic Farming. We don’t have direct experience with this firm, but their website demonstrates a good handle on the real estate farming approach.
Bringing It All Together
Real estate farming is an effective means of prospecting and developing a consistent source of seller and buyer leads. The best part about farming is that your rate of return on your investment improves over time—as your messaging gets sharper, as more people recognize you, and as your sales stats in the neighborhood improve.
Have a real estate farming idea we didn’t cover? Let us know in the comments!
Some good info here. I’ve been a successful geographic farmer for over 20 years, it really works but consistency is extremely important. I suggest at least 1,000 homes to start, in an area with at least 7% turnover per year. Of those 70 listings a great farmer can get 25-50% of the listings. Expect a 5-10% market share by year two if you hit it hard. I send out 6 x9 postcards with color on both sides from eprint fast. I typically have 2 designs that look almost identical except for different background photos and message- Call Me Today for Top Dollar! on the front. A short bio about my love for the area on the back. Brand yourself as the “Highland Creek Specialist” or “The Maple Green School Neighborhood Specialist” or whatever is a recognizable small community in your area. Don’t call yourself the Florida Specialist etc as it is way too broad. You are going to have to send out your postcard every ten days for the first 3 months. Yup. Repetition is the key to success. Personally I don’t think you need to send an item of value. Just keep pounding your name out there to gain top of mind awareness in your farm. Don’t worry about the weirdos that may call to say take me off your list. It just shows people are noticing your marketing. After 3 months you can back off to every 15 days for the rest of your life. When you list something send out a black and white flyer ( but same branding and look) to keep costs down. Same when you sell something. Every 90 days send out a scratchpad/ notepad instead of your postcard. There are lots of places online that print these- typically these are 20-25 cents per unit. Put branding on your car and drive slowly thru the area every day on every street. People notice you. Park at the local coffee shop and look busy while having a coffee. Wear a nametag. When you get a listing use a branded for sale sign and 10 branded house for sale arrows throughout the neighborhood. Do open houses as often as you can and use branded directional arrow signs. I have 20 and put at least 2 on every corner. These are the basics and they really work. It is not cheap I know- I typically spend about 15-20% of income on my farm in an area with an avg price of 1.6 million. Good Luck!
Hello Dan,
Fellow Canadian agent here. We are looking at setting up a farm and would love the opportunity to pick your brain since you’ve been successful at it for the last 20 years in Canada.
I can be contacted at info@primepropertieson.com
Hi Dan –
Great tips! Glad to hear you’re hitting farming hard, it’s fun to hear about how it’s working for agents.
Keep up the good work!
Chris
Hi.
You wrote an article on Farming and mentioned Geographic Farming.
I called Geographic Farming and entered “1” to reach sales. It rang, then went silent and finally a voice said “It’s not convenient for me to answer the phone” I believe that is Verbatim.
That was a big put off – using the word “convenient”.
Isn’t greatness achieved when people come out of their comfort zone (i.e. convenient)?
Maybe they need sales training 101.
Is their service any good?
Maybe they need competition to up their game?
FYI.
Thanks,
Stan
I am a new agent, actually we are a new property company. I find your comments very useful as I was falling around from one area to the other and did not establish a farming area. I will use your advise and use my closest area where I live as my farming area.
Hi Antoinette –
Thanks for the comment, glad we could help. Keep up the hard work!
Chris
Do you have ideas for farming high-rise condominium buildings in a large metropolitan area? It’s easy to get hundreds of addresses from just one building. I can send initial postcards and then follow up with letters. Any other ideas?
Thanks for the comment. Farming a large building is a great idea, especially since the price per square foot is pretty consistent, making it relatively easier to get an accurate prediction of the projected price per unit (which makes you look like a real estate wizard!).
If I were you, I would consider how you could get in good with the HOA. The boards of these buildings wield a fair amount of power; offer to sponsor events, be the official provider of free, premium, hard-to-get information, that sort of thing. I’ve heard of agents that offer to “sponsor” HOA meetings, providing snacks and drinks and offering free advice. You’ll make a lot of connections there in a short amount of time!
Good luck!
Chris
Well done! This article actually delivers useful, valuable information! Thank you so much!
Veronica –
That’s what we’re here for, glad to help.
Chris
lol the cost of the website lol
Hi Rodney –
Are you looking for help with a website? I can point you in the right direction if so. Feel free to respond with another comment or email me at Chris@theclose.com, I can make some suggestions.
Thanks!
Chris
I’m looking for an example of what to say in a communication to a neighborhood. For example, we have a home for sale and we want neighbors in that subdivision to know about it. We also want those neighbors to share the listing with their friends as a “great place to live”. Most people would want someone they could potentially become friends with as a neighbor. Any ideas with that as an angle?
Hi Kathy –
Thanks for the question. This is a little tricky because you have to be careful that all your language is fair-housing compliant, something that most neighbors won’t be thinking about. Are you thinking you want something to send to the neighbors to encourage them to share the listing with their friends, or are you actually wanting language for the neighbors to use when sharing your listing?
Chris
This is a really good article with lots of great ideas I plan to utilize. If you have a book regarding this subject I would definitely buy, thanks
Hi Katrina –
No book at the moment, but if one comes together I’ll make sure to let you know!
Chris
Great article Chris, what are your thoughts on using predictive analytics to help determine which properties to farm to? I work for offrs.com which can help with that. Would love to chat sometime!
Hi Elliot –
Thanks for the comment. I do think that predictive analytics has a place in the process for sure. It seems like the technology is changing very quickly in that space, a reason I am watching it very closely. I’d love to hear about what your doing over there, feel free to Email me: chris@theclose.com
Chris
Chris, thank you for this writing this article….well written text that is understandable and relays detailed useful information…..excellent piece!
Hi Linda –
Glad this was helpful. Real estate farming is definitely a tricky thing to get started in, but a great way to generate leads.
Chris
Just what I needed to set started in this new career! Great info and detail! Thank you!
Hi Shamen –
So glad to be of some help! Good luck.
Chris
Thank you so much for the article!
You bet! Glad we could help!
Chris
Very Informative, thank you!
Glad to help Jannette!
Chris
Great information! Thanks for the ideas.
You’re most welcome Pam! Hope your farming is productive!
Chris
This is awesome, would love to chat about using handwritten mail and its effectiveness over traditional mail farms to see if it’s up your alley for an article.
Hi Nick –
Glad the article was helpful! Handwritten communication is a effective means of outreach and followup for sure!
Chris