Real Estate Texting Service Guide for Agents and Brokers

Realtor or broker? Learn more about business text messaging for broker-agent communications and SMS marketing for real estate agents.

Real estate agent and homebuyer shaking hands
In the real estate industry, good relationships between realtors, brokers, and homebuyers are key to successful businesses—and efficient communications are key to good relationships. That’s why 90% of realtors prefer to communicate to their clients through business SMS. In our real estate resource center, you’ll find quick answers to your questions about how a real estate texting service works, articles that reveal how best to use SMS for your real estate business, case studies featuring other real estate businesses, and blog posts that will guide you to real estate texting success. (If you’re new to real estate texting, check out our business text messaging terminology page to learn terms you haven’t seen before.)

What is a Real Estate Texting Service?

A real estate texting service refers to both general real estate texting as well as real estate SMS marketing. Brokers and realtors alike use real estate texting, which encompasses tasks like arranging meetings or showings, divulging timely information, answering client questions, and coordinating on critical projects. Real estate SMS marketing is less often used, but agents do employ it to share new listings and other relevant deals with homebuyers. Real estate businesses with multiple team members or clients often use advanced texting platforms to help them manage their real estate texting services, empowering them to send quick and easy messages to colleagues and homebuyers alike.
Man taps open real estate SMS message on smartphone

How Brokers and Agents Can Use a Real Estate Texting Service

Brokers and agents use real estate texting services to efficiently manage their internal and external communications. We touch on this in one of our blog posts, “5 Ways Brokerages Can Improve Agent Communications With A Real Estate Texting Service.” Real estate texting is helpful with everything from training realtors to letting agents know about home closing updates that they, in turn, can relay to their homebuyers. In fact, there are many use cases for real estate texting services:

  • Schedule, remind, and confirm events such as meetings and showings

  • Coordinate with brokers, realtors, contractors, and other business partners

  • Inform realtors about new listings, recently lowered home prices, or other deals

  • Send document notifications and homebuyer updates

  • Answer homebuyer queries, coordinate deals, and gather homebuyer feedback

  • engage voters with political text messages

    Facilitate realtor training and host an open Q&A line for questions from realtors in the field

Homebuyer reading multiple real estate marketing texts and property listings

What's Real Estate SMS Marketing?

Real estate SMS marketing differs from general real estate texting in that it can be used to facilitate a real estate text lead capture, reinvigorate homebuyers, or close deals. For example, while setting up a meeting with a homebuyer via text would be considered real estate business texting, sending a lukewarm lead the link to a brand-new listing would be considered real estate SMS marketing. Because they are more often customer-facing, real estate agents are more likely than brokers to use SMS marketing.

Real Estate SMS Marketing for Agents

While realtors use real estate texting to conduct day-to-day tasks, like scheduling showings and answering homebuyer queries, they use SMS marketing to excite lukewarm or cold leads.

  • Announce open houses and showings, and send event reminders or confirmations

  • bulk sms for political campaigns

    Announce new listings, lower home prices, and reinvigorate homebuyer interest

What are Real Estate Text Message Scripts?

Real estate text message scripts or templates are frequently used messages that real estate professionals can save within their business texting platforms and reuse later. Templates can be used by agents for homebuyer communications, like appointment reminders or new listing announcements, or by brokers, for internal announcements or scheduling coordination. Merge tokens, features of the most advanced platforms, enable teams to send personalized templated messages to lists of recipients by automatically filling in templates with custom field information for each recipient. These templates empower teams to send personalized messages at a fast pace.

Realtors brainstorming real estate text message scripts with sticky notes on a glass wall
  • Hi {{first name}}, Janet from Superior Real Estate here. We’ve got an exciting open house coming up on {{date}} at {{address}}. Are you interested in coming?
  • Hi {{first name}}, don’t forget about your house showing at {{listing address}} on {{date}} at {{time}}! Text R to reschedule.
  • Hey {{agent name}}! We’ve got a new listing at {{listing address}} if you have any interested homebuyers.

Real Estate SMS Samples

Ultimately, your SMS real estate templates will reflect the messages that your teams send the most. Take a look at each real estate SMS sample to see fully optimized templates, including custom fields information.

As you see in each individual real estate SMS sample, there are multiple opportunities for customizing your messages.

Customer Success Stories

"Since using Heymarket, 80% of my clients respond to my short, weekly housing market update."

Tristan Ahumada

Keller Williams

"The key to being successful is improving the customer experience. Heymarket has helped us become the easiest and quickest home inspection company to work with."

Lorri Ratliff

Owner, Pillar to Post of SW Washington

Best Practices for Real Estate SMS Marketing

As with any communications channel, text marketing for real estate agents has established best practices and text message etiquette. First and foremost, remember that homebuyers must opt in before you text them. Other than that, a great rule of thumb is that your business texts should adhere to the general best practices of business emails: use professional language, communicate during business hours, and do not barrage homebuyers with too many messages.

Benefits of Using a Platform for Real Estate Text Leads

Using real estate texting services to contact leads has a variety of benefits, most of them concerning speed and convenience. Text marketing for real estate agents, particularly via a business texting platform, is the fastest way to attract homebuyers’ attention.

  • SMS can be sent quickly, which is important, as realtors are often on the move between showings, inspections, and client meetings

  • Client data and messages can be tracked within texting platforms and third-party business apps through SMS integrations

  • Messages are archived for later reference or review, if real estate agents use advanced texting platforms

  • Texts receive more replies from clients, and clients send responses faster, too

Best Practices for Texting Real Estate Leads

Professionality is vital in text marketing for real estate agents. You’ll want to follow the following best practices when sending real estate SMS messages:

  • 1 Ensure homebuyers opt in before you text them, and always offer them a way to opt out.
  • 2 Only use texts for short, positive chats; use phone calls or emails for long conversations.
  • 3 Insert extra positivity in your texts to avoid misinterpretation from homebuyers.
  • 4 Use proper grammar and syntax, and avoid abbreviations or acronyms to avoid confusion.
  • 5 Proofread before you press “send”—and remember that texts last forever.