Most real estate lead statistics pages are a list of percentages with no year, no sample, and no link. Half of them trace back to the same two sales studies from 2007 and 2011. The other half trace back to nothing.
This page is the broader landscape, with the receipts: where buyers actually find homes, how they pick an agent, which lead sources agents say work, what a paid lead costs, and how often an inquiry gets ignored. Every number has a source, a year, and a line on what it does not prove.
If you want the 100×, 21×, and 42-hour figures, those live in lead response time stats. We do not repeat them here.
Where do buyers find the home they buy?
Online. That part is not in dispute.
NAR’s 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers (transactions July 2024 to June 2025) says 52 percent of buyers found the home they purchased online, and 70 percent used a mobile or tablet device in the search. The 2025 highlights put the median search at 10 weeks and 88 percent of buyers purchasing through an agent or broker.
The 2024 highlights give the funnel shape. 43 percent said their first step was looking at properties online. 21 percent contacted an agent first. Buyers typically viewed seven homes. 51 percent found the home online and 29 percent through an agent.
Caveats:
- It is a mail and online survey of people who closed. The 2025 edition mailed 173,250 surveys and got 6,103 usable responses. People who searched and gave up are not in it.
- “Found the home online” is not “the lead came from a portal.” Plenty of those buyers already had an agent.
- First-time buyers fell to 21 percent of buyers in 2025, a record low, with a median age of 40. A national average blends very different shoppers.
What it is good for: the buyer is on a phone, on a listing, for weeks. The lead form is one tap in a long session, not a commitment.
How do buyers choose an agent?
Mostly through people they know, and mostly without shopping around.
From the NAR 2024 Profile highlights:
- 40 percent of buyers found their agent through a friend, neighbor, or relative. Among first-time buyers, 51 percent.
- 21 percent of repeat buyers used an agent they had worked with before.
- 77 percent of repeat buyers interviewed only one agent.
- 81 percent of sellers contacted only one agent before picking the one who sold their home.
That last pair is the stat that matters for leads. If most clients talk to one agent, the job of a portal lead is to make you that one agent. A referral gets that slot for free. A cold inquiry has to earn it on the first conversation, against whoever else got the same form.
Caveat: this is self-reported recall by people who already closed. “Interviewed” is the buyer’s definition, not yours. And the published highlights give the one-agent share for repeat buyers. We are not printing a first-time number we did not see in NAR’s own text.
Which lead sources do agents say actually work?
Not the ones they complain about paying for.
The NAR 2025 REALTORS® Technology Survey asked which technologies provided the highest number of quality leads:
| Source | Share of agents |
|---|---|
| Social media | 39% |
| CRM | 23% |
| Local MLS | 17% |
| Brokerage website | 13% |
| Digital ad campaigns | 12% |
| Listing syndication / portal (e.g. Realtor.com) | 9% |
| None of these | 15% |
On spend, 24 percent of agents spent under $50 a month on lead generation in the past year, and 27 percent spent $50 to $250.
The 2025 Member Profile (2024 business) explains why: the typical REALTOR® got 20 percent of business from repeat clients and 21 percent from referrals, closed a median 10 transaction sides, and earned a median $58,100 gross.
Caveats, and they are big:
- The tech survey had 1,241 responses, a 2.5 percent response rate, margin of error about ±2.8 points. It is all REALTORS®, not portal-buying teams.
- 9 percent saying portals give the most quality leads is not 9 percent saying portals are worthless. Most agents do not buy portal leads at all.
- A team that buys Zillow connections and an agent who lives off referrals are answering a different question.
What does a paid real estate lead cost?
There is no neutral, national cost-per-lead study for portal leads. There is one decent public benchmark for search ads.
LocaliQ’s real estate search advertising benchmarks (published September 2026, 894 US campaigns, April 2025 to March 2026):
| Category | Conversion rate | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|
| Real estate overall | 3.70% | $102.51 |
| Residential real estate agent | 1.29% | $157.59 |
| Real estate broker | 1.53% | $162.39 |
| Homes for sale by agent | 1.83% | $142.59 |
Read “lead” as LocaliQ defines it: a tracked conversion on the ad, usually a form or a call. Not a contacted buyer. Not an appointment. LocaliQ is an ad vendor reporting on campaigns it ran. That is vendor-reported data, not academic research.
Portals publish less. Zillow’s 2025 Form 10-K describes Premier Agent as market-based pricing where “connections are distributed to partners in proportion to their share of voice,” and Preferred (the old Flex) as pay-when-you-close. Zillow does not print a national price per connection there. The fee mechanics are in what Zillow leads cost and Zillow Flex leads.
We did not find a published Realtor.com Connections Plus rate card, so we are not printing a price. Third-party “$X per lead” figures are agent anecdotes. Get a quote for your ZIPs.
Scale for context: Zillow reported about 9.6 billion visits in 2025 and 259 million unique users at its July 2025 peak. That is the pool your share of voice is cut from.
How often do agents ignore an online inquiry?
Often enough that it is the biggest number on this page.
Mike DelPrete’s secret shopping study (August 2024) ran over 100 shops across more than 25 US brokerages, each tested two or three times, during weekday business hours, through brokerage websites (not Zillow):
- 47 percent of online property inquiries got no response.
- Average response time 8 hours 17 minutes. Median 39 minutes.
- At open houses, 42 percent of the time the agent never asked for contact details, and 62 percent of shoppers had no follow-up after touring.
Caveats: about 100 shops is small. It is brokerage websites, not paid portal leads, where the agent has paid and should be faster. Business hours only, so after-hours is likely worse, not better.
The 2011 HBR audit, across industries, found 23 percent of companies never replied to a test web lead. Different method, different sample, same lesson: “never” is common. The detail is in lead response time stats.
Portals measure this too, for the leads they sell. Zillow’s Flex partner guide (2024) sets a program standard of 60 percent or more answer rate over three months, with 40 percent as the minimum before a warning. That is Zillow’s internal standard, not a market average. It tells you what Zillow thinks “acceptable” looks like: four in ten connection calls missed still clears the floor.
Is there a real online lead conversion rate?
Not one you can cite honestly.
You will see “online real estate leads convert at 1 to 3 percent” everywhere. We could not find a primary study with a sample, a definition of “convert,” and a date. Zillow does not publish a national close-rate for its connections. NAR measures buyers who closed, not leads that did not.
The closest public number is LocaliQ’s ad conversion rate above, and that is click to form, not form to closing.
So compute your own. Zillow lead conversion rate is the worksheet: contacted in five minutes, appointments held, cash per hold. Split by source and by hour of day. That beats any national average because it is your file.
Which stat should you use for what?
| Stat | Source | Use it for | Don’t use it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 52% found home online | NAR Profile 2025 | Buyers live on listings | Portal lead quality |
| 43% first step online | NAR Profile 2024 | Why the form is early-stage | “They’re ready to buy” |
| 77% of repeat buyers interviewed one agent | NAR Profile 2024 | First real conversation wins the slot | First-time buyers |
| 9% say portals give most quality leads | NAR Tech Survey 2025 | Agents lean on sphere | “Portals don’t work” |
| $157.59 CPL, residential agent | LocaliQ 2026 | Search ad budgeting | Portal pricing, closed deals |
| 47% of inquiries ignored | DelPrete 2024 | How common “never” is | Your team’s rate |
| 60% answer rate standard | Zillow Flex guide 2024 | What Zillow calls acceptable | A target |
What should you measure this week?
Do this before you buy another lead. Pull last month’s inquiries by source.
- Percent never called live within 24 hours. Compare it to DelPrete’s 47 percent. Be honest.
- Median minutes from created to first live attempt. Not the mean. Not the auto-text.
- Cost per held appointment by source. Divide spend by showings that happened, not leads received.
If (1) is above zero, the cheapest leads you can buy are the ones you already paid for. That is where a voice agent like mergro fits: it rings every new inquiry in under a minute, day or night, so “never called” stops being a column.
Common mistakes
Quoting a stat with no year. NAR numbers move every November. Say which edition.
Calling ad conversions “leads.” LocaliQ’s $157.59 buys a form fill. A contacted buyer costs more.
Mixing survey populations. NAR buyers closed. DelPrete’s shoppers were tests. Agents in the tech survey mostly do not buy portal leads.
Using a referral-heavy national average to judge a portal team. 41 percent repeat and referral business is a typical REALTOR®, not a team buying 200 connections a month.
Inventing a conversion rate. If there is no sample and no definition, do not put it on a slide.
Treating Zillow’s 40 percent minimum as fine. It is the floor before a warning. It is also six in ten buyers who did not reach you.
Frequently asked questions
What percentage of buyers find their home online?
52 percent in NAR’s 2025 Profile (transactions July 2024 to June 2025). 51 percent in 2024.
How many agents do buyers interview?
Usually one. NAR’s 2024 highlights say 77 percent of repeat buyers interviewed only one agent, and 81 percent of sellers contacted only one.
What is the average cost per lead in real estate?
For search ads, LocaliQ’s 2026 benchmarks report $102.51 across real estate and $157.59 for residential agents. That is vendor-reported, per form or call, not per client.
How fast do real estate agents respond to leads?
In DelPrete’s 2024 test of brokerage websites, 47 percent never responded. Of those that did, the median was 39 minutes and the average over 8 hours.
What is a good real estate lead conversion rate?
There is no credible national benchmark. Measure contacted, held, and closed on your own file.
Sources
- National Association of REALTORS®, 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers and 2025 highlights. 52% found online, 70% mobile, 88% used an agent, 10 weeks, 21% first-time, median first-time age 40.
- National Association of REALTORS®, 2024 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers highlights. First step, agent referral, one-agent interviews.
- National Association of REALTORS®, 2025 REALTORS® Technology Survey. Quality lead sources, lead-gen spend.
- National Association of REALTORS®, 2025 Member Profile coverage. Repeat and referral business, transaction sides, income.
- LocaliQ, Real estate search advertising benchmarks, September 2026. Vendor-reported.
- Zillow Group, Form 10-K for fiscal year 2025. Pricing model, traffic.
- Zillow, Flex Program Overview, Enhanced Markets (2024). Answer rate standard and minimum.
- Mike DelPrete, Secret Shopping: 47% of Online Property Inquiries Are Ignored, August 2024.
- James Oldroyd, Kristina McElheran, and David Elkington, The Short Life of Online Sales Leads, Harvard Business Review, March 2011.
Want the “never called” column at zero? Get started.