How to follow up house and land enquiries, and how fast.

Why speed matters more in house and land.

House and land buyers rarely enquire about one package. They fill in forms for several builders and estates in the same sitting, often at night or on the weekend, when the sales office is closed.

Whoever replies first with something useful usually gets the conversation. A slow reply rarely loses a deal on price. It loses it because someone else answered first.

What a good first reply looks like.

Keep it short, personal and easy to answer. Use their name, name the package or estate they asked about, and finish with one question they can answer in a few words.

First textHi [name], it's [your name] from [company]. Thanks for asking about [package] in [estate]. Are you buying to live in, or as an investment?

Other good first questions: have you spoken to a broker yet, and when are you hoping to move in? Pick one. A list of questions in the first text reads like a form.

A follow-up schedule you can keep.

A schedule means nobody has to remember. Use this as a starting point and change the timing to suit your buyers.

1. Within minutes: the first text, as above.
2. Next day: a call. If they don't pick up, a short text to say you tried.
3. Day 3: a text with one question, such as whether their finance is sorted.
4. Day 7: something useful, such as the current price list or a new release near them.
5. Day 14: a check on their timing.
6. Day 30: ask whether to close their file or keep them posted.

If they answer at any step, stop the schedule and talk to them. If they say no, stop and write down why.

Who answers after hours and on weekends?

Plenty of enquiries arrive after the office closes. There are three ways to cover them:

• A roster, where someone on the team replies after hours. It works, but it is hard to keep up.
• A rule that every weekend enquiry gets a reply first thing Monday. It is easy, but by Monday the buyer has often heard from someone else.
• A system that sends the first reply straight away and passes the buyer to your team for the call. It needs setting up once.

Give every lead an owner and a next step.

Follow-up falls over when it depends on someone remembering. Every lead needs one person who owns it and one next step with a date. A lead with no next step is already going cold.

Start each day with a short list: new enquiries, buyers due a follow-up today and anyone who replied overnight. Call those first.

Don't drop buyers who go quiet.

Quiet usually means busy, not no. A buyer who is a year away from building is still a buyer. Move them to a slower list and send something useful every few weeks, such as new releases or price changes, so you are the first call when they are ready.

For the texts to send, see what to text a house and land buyer who's gone quiet. Old enquiries are worth working too: one team's held 66 buyers who still wanted to buy.

If you want this done for you.

We build and run the system that does this. New enquiries get a reply straight away and a few questions, and buyers who are ready go to your team with a short summary. Buyers who went quiet get two-way texts, and the interested ones come back to you.

We run you in approval mode, so each reply waits for you to press Send. Opt-outs are checked before any reply goes out. Try the instant reply.