Your team’s working open homes every weekend. Buyers are walking through. Some are hot, some are just looking. But here’s what’s actually happening: you’re watching future listing opportunities walk out the door, and most real estate principals have no idea it’s even happening.

The reality? Around 50% of every person who walks through your open homes will decide to sell their own property within the next 12 months. Yet most agencies have zero systems to capture these opportunities. They’re focused entirely on the transaction in front of them—selling the property they’re holding open—while their competition quietly builds relationships with the same buyers who will list in six months’ time.

This isn’t a prospecting problem. It’s a systems problem. And it’s costing your business hundreds of thousands in lost revenue.

Let’s call it what it is: a leak. That person who walks through your open, tells your agent they’re “just looking,” and disappears? That’s not a dead lead. That’s a future seller you just lost to another agency.

Here’s what typically happens in most real estate businesses:

The agent meets a buyer at an open home. The buyer isn’t ready to make an offer. The agent mentally categorises them as “not serious” and moves on. Three months later, that same buyer purchases with a different agency. Six months after that, they list their existing property—with the agent who actually stayed in touch.

Your team just worked for free for your competition.

The problem isn’t your agents’ work ethic. It’s that most real estate businesses operate reactively. They chase today’s commission and miss tomorrow’s opportunity. They don’t have a framework to systematically capture, nurture, and convert buyers into future listing clients.

This system isn’t complicated. It’s just structured. And structure is what separates high-performing agencies from those constantly scrambling for listings.

Step 1: Capture Every Entry Point

Buyers enter your business through five main channels:

• OFI enquiries from property portals
• Phone calls to your office
• Walk-ins to your shopfront
• Private inspection requests
• Online enquiry forms

If you don’t have a consistent capture process for every single entry point, you’re already losing opportunities. This means every buyer interaction—regardless of how they found you—gets logged into your CRM with the same baseline information.

No exceptions. No “I’ll add them later.” Every buyer, every time.

Step 2: Day Zero Contact (Within One Hour)

Speed matters. Within one hour of a buyer entering your system, someone from your team makes contact. Not to sell them. To interview them.

This is a short, value-driven conversation designed to understand their position:

• Are they a first home buyer, investor, or upgrading?
• Do they have finance approved?
• Have they made any recent offers on properties?

These three questions tell you exactly where they sit in their buying journey. They also position your agency as professional and consultative rather than pushy.

At the end of this call, they’re added to your buyer newsletter—a regular touchpoint that keeps you relevant without being intrusive.

Step 3: The Call Cadence (Days 7, 14, 21)

Most agents either over-follow-up (calling daily until the buyer blocks them) or under-follow-up (one call, then nothing). Both approaches lose listings.

The structured approach: contact at day seven, day 14, and day 21 with one of three legitimate reasons:

• A price change on a property they’ve viewed
• Notification that a property has sold
• A search update based on their criteria

This keeps your agency front-of-mind without becoming annoying. You’re providing value, not chasing.

Step 4: The Sold Call (The One Almost No One Does)

When a property sells, most agents celebrate and move on. High-performing agencies see this as another opportunity.

Every buyer who inspected that property gets a call: “Hi, just letting you know the property at [address] has sold. Are you still actively looking?”

This single conversation achieves two things. First, it re-engages buyers who may have gone quiet. Second, it positions your agency as the one who follows through—which matters when they’re ready to list their own property.

If 50% of your open home attendees are going to sell within 12 months, this call is your entry point to that future listing.

Step 5: Data Hygiene in Your CRM

Your CRM should show at a glance:

• Buyer type (first home, investor, upgrading)
• Finance approval status
• Recent offer activity
• Temperature rating (hot, warm, cold)

Without clean data, your team can’t act strategically. They’re guessing instead of executing. Clean data lets you identify the exact moment a cold buyer becomes warm—and that’s when you strike.

The buyer journey system works because it treats buyers like future clients, not transactions. It acknowledges that real estate is a relationship business, and relationships require consistent, structured touchpoints.

Most real estate principals tell me they “don’t have time” for this level of follow-up. But here’s the truth: you’re already spending the time. Your agents are already at open homes, already taking calls, already meeting buyers. The difference is whether that time generates one commission or two.

This system doesn’t require more marketing spend. It doesn’t require more open homes. It requires plugging the leaks in your existing lead flow.

As a real estate mentor, I’ve watched this single shift generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional revenue for agencies across Australia and New Zealand. Not through harder work. Through smarter systems for real estate.

Let’s put numbers to it. If your team holds 20 open homes per month, and an average of 10 buyers attend each open, that’s 200 buyer interactions per month. If 50% of those buyers will sell within 12 months, that’s 100 future listing opportunities.

Now ask yourself: how many of those 100 buyers are you actually capturing, nurturing, and converting?

If the answer is less than 50, you’re leaking tens of thousands of dollars every single month. And your competition—the agents who do have systems—are collecting those listings instead.

The buyer journey system is one component of what I teach real estate principals inside my coaching program. It’s part of a larger framework that turns reactive agencies into predictable, scalable businesses.

If you’re a real estate principal tired of watching listing opportunities slip through your fingers, it’s time to build systems that capture them instead.

Book a brainstorm call and I’ll show you exactly where your business is leaking opportunities—and how to plug them.