I am getting an estimated 150-200 buyer internet leads per month and I was wondering if I should I bring on a buyers agent to help convert the leads? If so, do anyone have any suggestions on how I should structure hiring someone? Should I pay 50/50 of the gross commission? If I gave this person 5 leads a week what is a fair conversion rate I should expect from them? How many leads should I expect them to generate of their own and what percentage should they get if they provide a lead themselves? Any suggestions?

We all know only a small percentage of internet leads are valid and now buyers.

You have to incubate them for sometimes 6 months to 1 year for when they are ready to purchase,save up a down payment,work out credit issues,etc.

If you are the head broker 50/50 is fair if the leads are scrubbed and valid.If the agent still has a split with the head broker after you the margins are too small.

Thanks for your reply Super Realtor. No I am not the principal Broker but I am on a 100% split with my current brokerage. When i give a lead to the buyers agent they would get exactly half of the gross commission,no other fees will come out.Some are still saying I should do a 60/40 split.I want to be fair.

It depends on a scrubbed versus unscrubbed lead.

Unscrubbed is they filled out a form and the agent does all the work.Scrubbed is you have talked to the buyer,pulled credit,gotten buying criteria,and are ready to go.

You can get the 50/50 for those.The key is you will need a system for working the leads for your buyer agent.If you do not they will not be able to convert and they will still be wasted leads.

Let me see if I understand this correctly: You want to hire a Buyer's Agent, give them your internet leads, then get split of the commissions (understandable, no problem there). But you also want to set a minimum of how many leads they must generate on their own AND you would (potentially) get a split of the commission on leads THEY generate?

As far as what kind percentage to expect a buyer's agent to close, although you may hear different %'s thrown around (1-5%, typically) this would be very influenced by your particular market and the quality of leads your site produces. In the past, what percentage of leads have you been able to close?

Yes, I will expect my buyers agents to not only work the leads I provide BUT bring in business as well.Every buyers agent have a SOI.I have spoken with several team leaders and they expect all their agents to produce not just wait on leads provided. Of course everybody has a opinion about this subject but I am not interested in anybody working on my team that cannot close their on SOI.I think its fair for me to do a 60/40 split for leads I provide and a 80/20 for leads they generate.This may not work for some agents but I can tell you this...if a agent cannot survive in this business on their own the only thing left is to work for another agent or a 9-5. Its a choice! BTW to answer your question I convert roughly 10% of my internet leads I hope to get that percentage up to 15% by the end of the year.

Point well taken...I've being selling real estate 10 years with a part time assistant so the buyers agent thing is new to me. I mentioned in my first post I want to be fair but at same time run my business as a profit corp not a non profit :) I think I will start out with a 50/50 split every scrubbed lead and unscrubbed will be 60/40.Thanks for the feedback...Happy 4th

Please keep us informed of your progress. I'm interested to know if your able to hire a buyers agent under this setup.

I always wonder if there is actual profit at the end of the day to the team leader or if it's just a matter of them not having to work so hard, taking more time off etc. I'm sure it always starts off as "if only I could have someone to convert some of these extra website leads, sign calls, open house leads and internet calls I do not want. Then you get your own space to accommodate, add magazine ads to generate more leads and then what is left ?
Compared to a good single agent with assistance and low over head.
Who's really most profitable?

Hey a couple quick questions for those who work raw internet leads.. and one or two ideas from someone who has started his career almost solely on internet leads.

Questions:

What do you do to increase your closing % of internet leads?

Do you ever try to revive 'dead' leads? How well does it work?

My Answers:

I have all my leads on a drip campaign with results tailored to the property they originally inquired about. I also have a lender who will call them over and over if they say I can have them pre-approved and they do not answer the first, second, third time.. So I try them many times to start with.. if I get them they go to lender, then on drip and I will start emailing/calling every once in a while. If I do not get them they go on drip and I usually do not waste too much effort on them, but occasionally one of these contacts me! I have over 150 drips going now, about 75 of them are looking at the listings every 2 - 3 weeks, and about 35 look at them every email (2x week).

I generally have 4-6 buyer appointments week and growing as the number of drips is growing.

I have tried to revive dead leads, usually it does not work, but one day I decided to call about 50 people who I had either never talked to or could not remember talking to last (maybe 3-6 months old) and I was out showing one 'dead' lead houses and drafting an offer the very next week..

Looking for tips if you have any... I have a whole slew of 'dead/inactive' leads I need to work but I'm pretty busy working the active ones and trying to prospect sellers and planning to try to out-dial lucky as soon as I get moved into my new condo and have some phone lines installed.

Dead leads, it all depends on your line of thought. Early in my career I decided to follow the lead of one of the top agents in the state on buyer calls and if they did not indicate they would do something in 90 days they were referred to agents in the specific area they were interested in.

Because of the low return, one day I just started throwing them into a bottom drawer of my second desk with the thought that someday I will maybe come up with an better idea. And then one day we had a new agent start, and my new policy was to have new agents use the second desk in my office for awhile before I assigned them one.

She opened up that drawer and said whats this stuff, so I told her and she thought she could learn something from following up on my rejects. She just started calling them and gathering info, even on ones that had done something she managed to contact.

Then every so often she would drop a new listing or sales contract on my desk and just say "another dead lead". So no more bottom drawer, I would drop them on her desk and say "have fun", and one day she just said "they ain't dead until they are dead, and even then may be an estate lead".

Couldn't argue with her results, and the one day a week she concentrated on dead leads, even the other agents would throw their dead ones on her desk and say if it works out you can buy me lunch. She bought a lot of lunches.

Ok, you get 150-200 internet leads per month and you are closing 10% of those (which is considerably above average). So you are closing 15-20 deals per month from your site leads. Personally, I don't know that many agents would be able to keep up with your type of conversion rate so by giving it to a BA, you may be losing out on potential transactions.

Another method that you may want to consider is doing an escalated split. For example, on the first closing, the split is 75/25 (in your favor), second closing, 60/40, third closing (and every subsequent closing) 45/55. This way, you give your BA the incentive to close more transactions rather than a flat split.

And I get the point as to why a potential buyer's agent should be able to generate his/her own business as well as closing on your leads, I just don't see the reasoning as to why you would get any cut of that.

Btw, obviously you don't have to share, but what site are you using to generate that number of leads (and more importantly, QUALITY leads)? Based on every metric that I just saw, your georgiashortsales site clearly doesn't have the type of traffic to generate that amount of leads so it got me wondering.

Scrubbed or unscrubbed, you should be able to get 50/50. You should have no problems finding an agent that will agree to that. They don't have to market, and all they have to do is sell. Don't forget the value you provided by procuring the business.

Thanks Steve I was able to bring on a buyers agent and she is very excited about working my leads and getting 50/50 on each lead.By reading the posts in this forum I realize more than ever that we Realtors all do things differently for the most part.Happy selling!

Thanks for your reply and opinion.I have several sites that rank high on the search engines. The site you mentioned is the site I promote on my email.All together I have 12 sites that generate traffic for me and I am adding more. I realize most agents are not converting 10% of their leads however I models/systems in place that allow me to consistently produce.BTW I hired a buyers agent last week and she already is working with a approved buyer I provided. She was more than happy to accept 50/50 on a 9500 deal.Good luck and happy selling!