How to get real estate listings when most sellers call only one agent

Most sellers pick their agent before they pick up the phone. In the latest National Association of Realtors survey of home sellers, 80% contacted only one agent before choosing who would sell their home. So getting more real estate listings comes down to being that one name for more of the homeowners near you.

This post is for an agent who already closes deals and wants more of them to be listings. It covers where sellers find their agent, and what homeowners search for before they call anyone. We are OnlineGrowthMarketing, and we make founder-led video for real estate agents, so we will say where that fits and where it does not.

How do real estate agents get listings?

Mostly through people the seller already knows. The NAR 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers asked recent sellers how they found their agent. This is how the answers split.

Those two top rows add up to 66%. Two out of every three sellers chose an agent they had worked with before, or one somebody they trust had worked with. Every other method on the list brought in 5% of sellers or fewer.

Why do most sellers call only one agent?

Because by the time they call, they have already decided. In the same survey, the most important factor for sellers choosing an agent was the agent's reputation, at 35%. A seller who has heard your name from a neighbor, or watched you explain the local market, arrives with that reputation already formed.

That changes where the work is. The listing appointment matters, but most of the time there is no second agent at the table to compete with. The competition happened earlier, when the homeowner was thinking about selling and had not told anyone yet. Whoever they thought of then is who they call.

How can realtors get more listings from past clients?

By staying in front of them between deals. Past clients have chosen you once already, and the NAR figures show they are willing to do it again.

• They come back. 29% of recent sellers used an agent they had bought or sold with before.
• They talk about you. 65% of sellers had recommended their agent at least once since the sale, and 24% had done it four or more times.

The leak is time. A family that bought from you in 2019 might sell in 2027. In between, most agents send a holiday card and a market update nobody reads, and by 2027 the family remembers your name but not much else. If another agent has been in their feed every week for a year, that is the agent who feels familiar.

The ask matters too. Ask for a name straight after a result the client noticed, such as a fast close or an offer over asking. "Do you know anyone thinking of selling?" gets a polite no. "Is anyone on your street thinking about moving before the school year?" gets a name, because they can picture the house.

Why does a referred seller look you up before they call?

Because a referral is a name, and selling a home is a big decision to make on a name. The seller wants to see something before they invite you in. Usually they find your listings and a brokerage profile. That tells them what you have sold, and very little about how you would handle their sale.

This is where referrals leak, and you never see it. You hear from the referred sellers who rang. You do not hear from the ones who looked you up, felt nothing either way, and called the agent their cousin used.

A short video of you answering a question they are already asking changes what they find. They have heard how you explain pricing before the first meeting, so the listing appointment can start on their house. We made the same argument about the whole funnel in real estate lead generation. This post is the seller side of it.

What do homeowners search for before they choose an agent?

Questions about selling, long before they search for an agent. We pulled US search volumes for these terms on 27 October 2026.

Look at the click prices. how to sell my house costs $53.04 a click, because a homeowner typing it is close to a decision and many agents are bidding for them. should i sell my house costs $13.20, because that homeowner is still deciding. The cheap searches come from homeowners months away from a listing appointment, which is the window where a name gets chosen.

how to choose a real estate agent is the one to watch. It ran 1,600 searches in September 2026, against 320 in October 2025. More sellers are vetting agents on their own before they call, and what they find when they search your name is part of that vetting.

Do open houses and mailers still get listings?

They get some, and the NAR figures say how many. Open houses brought in 3% of recent sellers. Direct mail and signs brought in 2% each. Personal outreach by the agent, such as a call or an email, brought in 5%.

Those are real listings, and an agent who works an area hard can do well from them. Their main value is meeting homeowners in person. A neighbor who visits your open house and already recognises you from a video is a warmer conversation than a stranger. A mailer that lands on the doormat of a homeowner who has watched you for six months gets read.

What we would not do is rely on any one of them to fill a pipeline. On these numbers, referrals and repeat clients are where two thirds of listings come from. If you want help deciding which platform earns the time you spend on social, we covered that in real estate social media marketing.

Where does founder-led video fit in getting more listings?

In the months before a homeowner decides, and at the moment a referred seller looks you up. Past clients see you every week between deals. Homeowners in your area hear you answer the questions in that search table, so your name is already there when they decide to sell.

The hard part is keeping it going through a busy season, and that is the part we take on. You record with us once, for about an hour. From that session we build a model of your face and voice, and every week after that we write the script and publish a video of you. You approve each script in writing before anything is made, which takes a few minutes a month. Whether your brokerage needs to see it first is between you and them, and the written approval record is there either way.

Prices run from $200 to $1,200 a month and are published on our pricing page, with no call required. The detail for this profession is on marketing for real estate agents, and the process is on how it works.