You're Paying for Leads You Never Answer: Speed to Lead and AI for Real Estate Agents

Picture the buyer. They're on Zillow at night, saving homes, sending inquiries to three or four agents at once.

"If they don't hear back from that realtor very, very quickly, like within seconds even, they're already moving on to the next listing," Jared said. "They're looking at so many different listings that it's easy to forget which realtors they've even reached out to."

So how fast is fast enough? Jared's answer: seconds. He shared a widely quoted figure; failing to respond within about five minutes makes continuing the conversation roughly 10 times harder.

Now compare that with the 48 hours Bruno said many agents take.

And remember, you paid for that lead. Unless you already rank on Google, every inquiry cost you money:

• Zillow and the other portals
• Google search ads
• Facebook and Instagram ads

"When you're paying for these hard-earned leads, you want to make sure that you're going to win them," Jared said.

He has lived this as a customer, too. When he moved to California, he toured 10 to 15 rentals, with a different agent for each one. "Some I reached out to and I didn't hear back from them at all. Or I heard back from them a day or two later, and I'd already moved on to the next place."

One agent got his business. The rest lost it before they ever said hello.

Bruno has the same experience with almost every service he contacts. "Most of the time, I receive one message, and that's it. They don't call me. They don't send me a message three days later, five days later, the week after." His verdict: if you're not going after your leads, you're just wasting the time and money you spent to get them.

Here's the problem with "just reply faster." Leads don't wait for business hours. They show up while you're at a showing, at dinner or asleep.

That's where Jared puts AI to work. One of his clients runs Facebook lead ads: a video or image carousel of a property, and a form for anyone interested. The moment someone submits it, an AI starts a text conversation, answers their questions and books them in.

"Most of the time, people don't even know they're talking to AI," Jared said. "They'll answer the questions and they'll get them booked. So it furthers the conversation."

But he was just as clear about what AI isn't. "I don't see any world in which AI completely replaces humans. People buy from people that they like." During the day, if you can pick up, pick up. Rapport is your job. AI is the backup:

• After hours: answers calls, texts and emails instantly
• During the day: picks up if you don't answer within a few rings
• On your website: answers questions about the exact listing the visitor is looking at
• Booking: gets the showing on your calendar
• Follow up: makes sure they show up, and stays in touch after the tour

That last one matters. A buyer touring five homes this weekend is hearing from five agents. The one who keeps following up is the one still in the picture on Monday.

Bruno threw Jared a curveball: what about a lead who messages on WhatsApp? Jared's wife is Brazilian, he spends a lot of time in Brazil, and a WhatsApp version for Latin America is already on his list.

Jared builds these tools at AgencyFix, where the AI receptionist is called Jessica. AgencyFix lists four plans on its website, all with free setup and no long-term contract:

• Front Desk Lite, $97/month: instant text-back on missed calls, follow-up texting until the lead replies or books, and 200 conversations a month. It does not answer calls by voice.
• Front Desk Pro, $347/month: everything in Lite, plus 24/7 AI voice answering, qualification and booking, escalation of urgent calls to a human, 750 voice minutes (about 250 calls) and 500 conversations a month. Extra minutes are $0.75 each.
• Front Desk Growth, $749/month: everything in Pro, plus call routing by service or team, priority support, 2,000 voice minutes (about 665 calls) and 1,500 conversations a month.
• Enterprise, custom pricing: for multiple locations, departments or higher volume, such as a brokerage.

His pitch to solo agents was simple: if your broker isn't providing something like this, even the entry plan that answers texts and emails around the clock is "almost like a no brainer." For brokerages, he'd make it standard on the website so every agent on the team is first to the conversation.

Answering fast only pays off if the right people are raising their hands. Jared split your traffic into two very different crowds.

Facebook is low intent. "Facebook's a hard audience to crack," he said. People are there to entertain themselves and look at their friends' posts. Then your ad shows up. If it says "look at my three bedroom home," maybe a great photo gets a click. Maybe.

What works better is giving them something they actually want to know:

• "What's my home worth?"
• Instant valuation offers
• "Get pre-approved in 5 minutes"

According to Jared, offers like these "convert dramatically better as a cold ad than check out this three bedroom place." They also hand you an email or phone number, which is exactly when your instant follow up kicks in.

Google is high intent. Someone typing "three bedroom homes near me" is shopping right now. Don't send that click to your homepage. Send it to a landing page built for that exact search, show the inventory and make booking easy.

And put video on that page. "Having a walkthrough of that property and showing all the features of that, there's no substitute for that," Jared said. One walkthrough can power your organic posts, your paid ads, your landing pages and your Google Business Profile. With BIGVU, you can script it, record it on the teleprompter, and add captions and branding in minutes, so the video goes live while the listing is still new.

Bruno asked the question every agent with a full CRM wants answered: can AI bring those old leads back to life?

Jared's answer was refreshingly honest. He wouldn't use his AI for cold outreach. And he definitely wouldn't blast the list. "That's a way to get spam complaints on you."

Instead, turn that database into something you own: an email list.

"That email list belongs to you," he said. "It's not another platform that's going to change the rules, limit your visibility, or that you have to pay to play."

Here's the playbook:

• Opt them in. Use a double opt-in so people confirm they want to hear from you. Keep adding new people from open houses and inquiries.
• Follow them onto Facebook and Google. Upload the list as a custom audience and keep showing up with your success stories, listings, deals and walkthroughs.
• Give five or six for every one. For every pitch, post five or six pieces that actually help your audience.

Because content without a purpose doesn't work. "If you're just posting, you know, crapola, they're probably not going to look at your content," Jared said. Everything you post should either build awareness (who you are, what's available, what it costs) or trust (walkthroughs, sold listings, case studies, client wins). Not "today's National Donut Day fluff."

He pointed to his own town of Santa Clarita. "There's a couple realtors that you see their picture everywhere. You see them in all the magazines. You see them when you're on Facebook. They pop up on Google. Those are the ones that are crushing it."

That's the goal: become the king or queen of your local market, so when an old lead is finally ready, you're the first name they think of.

Bruno shared a story about an agent named Doug. Ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Google for an agent in Doug's area, and Doug comes up first. He publishes around 100 blogs a month.

You don't need 100 blogs. But you do need to show up locally, and Jared's starting point is the map pack: the three businesses Google shows at the top when someone searches "realtor near me." Make that top three and you get the lion's share of the clicks.

That spot is won on your Google Business Profile:

• Post photos and video regularly. Your walkthroughs belong here too.
• Get fresh reviews. Recent, high scoring and relevant. Google wants to see an active business.
• Pick keywords you can actually win. "Are you on page 100? Are you on page three? Are you on page one?" A keyword with a million searches is useless if national sites own page one.

And start now. "You're not going to start ranking for SEO in one minute," Jared said. "It takes months before you start ranking, so don't wait." Already on top? Then you're defending that spot with fresh content and reviews.

Paid ads are the opposite. Jared calls them a faucet: turn them up when you need volume, down when you don't. For listings, especially the big ones, he believes your budget goes much further on digital than on billboards and magazine ads, which are better for building your personal brand.

So where do you start? When Bruno asked for the one thing to do after the show, Jared didn't hesitate: start building your email list. Then run ads that go to pages built for the search. Then answer every lead, in seconds, day or night.

Or, as Bruno put it at the end of the show: if you're already paying for leads and creating content, the follow up is where you win or lose them. Make it fast.

Watch the full conversation with Jared Braverman on the BIGVU YouTube channel.