Why every agent needs a ‘home team’ to build consistent deals

Most agents who struggle with consistent leads have a misalignment somewhere in their business. Their marketing expectations don’t match their sales effort, or vice versa. The fix isn’t more leads. It’s building a business that works with the level of sales and marketing you’re actually willing to do.

That’s the premise behind The Leads Are Sh*t, a weekly live show where Andrew Fogliato, publisher of Real Estate Magazine, and Taylor Hack, a team leader in Edmonton, break down the business side of real estate. 

In the latest episode, they got into one of the most practical frameworks for building a sustainable real estate business: the home team.

The home team: Your most underused asset

Hack defines a home team as the people in your life who meet two criteria. First, they wouldn’t walk past you in a grocery store without stopping. Second, if someone in their circle asked for an agent recommendation, they would say your name without hesitation.

“You don’t want someone who sort of remembers you. You want someone who says: ‘You should definitely know Andrew. You have to talk to them.’” — Taylor Hack

Most new agents have around 50 people who fit this description, even if they don’t realize it. A quick text asking to update contact info will surface them. And if you do the right things with 50 people who genuinely know and trust you, you can reasonably expect five deals a year out of that group alone.

The challenge is consistency. Every two weeks that someone doesn’t hear from you or see you in their feed, your presence in their mind gets eroded by whoever is sitting next to them at their kids’ activities.

The ‘saw this, thought of you’ strategy

One of Fogliato’s solutions to staying top of mind isn’t complicated. It’s the ‘saw this, thought of you’ model: a quick email, text or social message that sends someone something genuinely relevant to them, with no real estate agenda attached.

If a client is a mountain biker and a new trail opens nearby, send them the link. No context needed. No question about whether they’re thinking of buying. Just: hey, saw this, thought of you.

“They know you’re an agent. It’s just a reminder that you like them. And that you’re paying attention.” — Andrew Fogliato

This works because it feels like a human interaction, not a marketing touchpoint. The more of those you create, the more you occupy the agent slot in that person’s mind.

The Google review hack nobody is using

Fogliato shared a tip from a local SEO expert: reply to your Google reviews with keywords.

Most agents write a brief thank-you in response to a review and move on. But when you reply with specific language, mentioning the property type, the neighbourhood and the outcome, search engines and AI tools scan those replies.

• Instead of: ‘Thanks so much, it was a pleasure working with you!’
• Try: ‘Thank you for the kind words. It was a pleasure helping you sell your detached home in Sherwood Park. Getting it sold in six days at that price was a great result.’

The keywords in your reply can help AI tools understand context better. Go back through every review you’ve received and upgrade your responses.

MLS descriptions: Stop writing for agents

Hack and Fogliato also broke down why most MLS listing descriptions don’t work, and the answer is historical. MLS was originally agent-to-agent. Descriptions were shorthand for other agents flipping through a book. But most buyers now find their own listings, which means descriptions written in that old shorthand are landing in front of people who have no idea what they mean.

The fix is straightforward: write for the buyer, not the agent. Use your most compelling detail as a load phrase that earns the call to action.

Example: ‘Has such an advanced home theatre that all the specs wouldn’t fit on MLS. Visit the agent’s website for more information.’

That one sentence creates curiosity, communicates value and gives someone a genuine reason to click through. Compare that to ‘Visit the agent’s website for more information,’ sitting at the bottom of a generic description.

The principle: earn the call to action before you ask for it.