Property acquiring is often more difficult for real estate agents than selling them. To give you a brief guide, this blog post will show you which strategies you can use to acquire properties in 2026.
Real estate agents have an incredible number of tasks to cover. To make matters worse, real estate agents today are often one-man shows, and acquiring properties can be very time-consuming. If real estate agents want to expand their teams, they have even less of their already limited time left, and training new employees becomes increasingly difficult.
This article is intended to help real estate agencies introduce new employees to property acquisition and identify potential strategies that are not yet known.
However, before you know how to implement property acquisition, you should know how properties come “onto the market.” According to an article in the Austrian newspaper “Salzburger Nachrichten,” only about 45% of all properties are sold through real estate agents. This article assumes that the use of real estate agents for property sales is increasing rather than decreasing. I assume that the number of broker engagements in 2026 will most likely also be around 50%.
How are properties marketed on the market?
According to a survey, 87% of respondents cited the following reasons for selling or renting real estate:
- 29% inheritance – without need for use
- 15% Cash requirement
- 13% Wedding / New baby
- 11% wanted to expand
- 10% changed jobs or wanted better housing
- 9% Separation/divorce
Now that we know WHY properties come onto the market, we can define the strategy for acquiring properties.
6 strategies for acquiring properties as a real estate agent
As a real estate agent, you can apply these 6 property acquisition strategies:
- The top dog
- There Trickser
- The Great One
- The mayor
- The Discount King
- The Lawyer´s Friend
These strategies are not mutually exclusive and can easily be combined. If you manage to implement these strategies for property acquisition optimally, you will see many “for sale” signs in your region. Once you have achieved this, you will be more visible than the competition.
According to Australian real estate professional Doug Malouf, you are number one in the region if you have the most signs up.
But be careful! These strategies only work if you are fully prepared. Rushing into things will be punished immediately—and that can be expensive.
Strategy 1: The Top Dog
A top dog is an established real estate agency in a specific regional area that no one can ignore. When people want to sell their property, this top dog, this perfect real estate agent, immediately springs to mind.
The market leader offers a great service that no other competitor can match! Since the market leader is already firmly established in the region, it is incredibly difficult for its competitors to “overthrow” it.
He offers such an excellent service that everyone else has to prove themselves. Because the top dog has such a great reputation, many people already turn to him when they want to sell their property—acquiring properties without having to take any action.
But it is also possible that they only turn to him after they have first tried to sell their property themselves and realized that it is not as easy as they thought.
However, the top dog strategy for property acquisition can only be implemented if you have already successfully sold or marketed real estate. This means that this strategy builds on other strategies.
The top dog strategy includes offline and online visibility in a specific region as well as actively approaching former/existing customers in order to obtain positive personal reviews. This is the only way to actually become and remain the top dog and thus acquire new properties.
The top dog has the following keywords that make him successful:
- Total Quality Management
- Regional advertising combined with billboards
- Active relationship management
- Possible and only targeted sponsorship
- Strong brand building and brand strategy
- …
Strategy 2: The Trickster
The trickster is always on the move. He walks or drives around the area looking for “FOR SALE” or “FOR RENT” signs belonging to the competition. Once he has found one, he transforms from a “schnitzel hunter” into an investigator. He uses all possible resources to find out who owns the property. Once he has tracked them down, he makes contact and the acquisition process begins.
How is contact made?
Once he knows how to contact him, he begins to develop a strategy for how best to start a conversation with him. The trickster also knows that the question is bound to come up:
“How did they find my property?”
To avoid embarrassing himself, he prepares a conversation guide. He steers the conversation unnoticed and tries to at least get permission to list the property IN ADDITION to his competitor.
However, the TRICKER’s GOAL is always to eliminate his competitors from the race. If he succeeds, he can market the property on his own.
Can you imagine what that means for the competitor? Exactly, he starts acquiring new properties!
What does this mean for the competition?
Somewhere in the process with his client, he made a mistake. He conveyed something to him that caused him to switch brokers.
HE WAS UNHAPPY or NOT ENTIRELY SATISFIED!
If this has ever happened to you, what did you do? Did you evaluate WHY you lost the listing? What might you have done wrong that caused the customer to choose the other real estate agent?
Once you’ve done that, you’ve already done MUCH MORE than many other real estate agents. Once you’ve found the mistake, avoid it next time and change your approach.
Always remember: Every NEW property you have acquired has cost you a LOT OF TIME!
Strategy 3: The Big One
This property acquisition strategy follows the B2B approach. The real estate agent focuses exclusively on project developers and builders who are still too small to have their own sales department. He knows what the builder needs, what he is looking for, and which target group he is addressing.
This real estate agent is similar to a project manager. He is deeply involved in the process and actively participates. He lives and breathes reporting—even more so than a private seller.
He knows exactly what the property developer wants and needs in order to continue to meet the needs of his target group in the future.
But even this strategy requires meticulous preparation for the conversation with your future potential customer. You need a conversation starter, you need a plan! For example, if you know where the developer currently has a project, you could use this to strike up a conversation with them.
But please keep in mind: If you, as a real estate agent, do NOT deliver for the developer, they will probably NEVER hire you again. Furthermore, the developer’s livelihood is at risk if you do not understand your craft as a real estate salesperson.
You need to alleviate these fears if you want to sell his projects exclusively.
For the purpose of this process, I recommend Neil Rackham’s SPIN method. This method is particularly well suited to the B2B sector. Please remember that low-priced consumer goods are sold differently to high-priced goods – and as a real estate agent, you are working in the high-price segment.
Strategy 4: The Mayor
With the mayor strategy, everyone in your region knows you. You have an incredibly large network and are praised and highly regarded by everyone for your expertise. You are present among a wide variety of influencers and are informed when properties are being considered for sale. You are strongly rooted in your target group and serve them perfectly. This is a different strategy for property acquisition and probably the most time-consuming.
With your strong network, you also cultivate your image on social media. But here, too, you are not aggressive in your sales approach; instead, you offer expertise that works in your favor. Do things that don’t hurt you. You build trust and become the number one point of contact in your region.
But be careful: make sure you don’t become the FREE INFO POINT. Set clear boundaries here!
Strategy 5: The Discount King
This type of property acquisition specifically targets price-sensitive sellers. You cultivate a low-cost image. You are the cheapest on the market. Property valuations are free of charge with you. You hope that this strategy will get you the listing for the property, as it allows you to engage with your target group. When it comes to negotiating your commission, you are happy to give up a whole percent of your commission right away.
The fact that this is 30% does not bother you. Your strategy is primarily to be able to list many properties for sale and rent.
How much you earn from each property is not important to you. The presentation leaves something to be desired. You don’t take much time to photograph the property, which is reflected in the quality of your photos. The collection of data on the property is inadequate, and there is no customer reporting.
However, none of this matters with this strategy. The customer is happy because they have found the cheapest broker on the market. Quality is only partially important to this customer—the main thing is that they “earn” a lot from their property.
Conclusion: The problem with the low-cost strategy is that you have to calculate everything precisely. If you miscalculate, it can threaten your livelihood! For several reasons, I do not recommend this strategy for property acquisition.
Strategy 6: The Lawyer´s Friend
With this strategy, the real estate agent has previously considered when properties come onto the market to be sold. Since, for example, a divorce usually involves a lawyer specializing in divorce law and a death is also handled by a lawyer, the focus here is on relationship management with precisely these professional representatives.
As a reminder: 38% of all properties that are to be sold cite divorce and death as the reason!
The real estate agent hopes to acquire properties through the referral tactic. The notary or lawyer usually receives a small referral fee to stay motivated and continue recommending the agent. Conversely, the real estate agent will also recommend this notary when the property is sold. An absolute win-win situation.
Of course, this strategy also carries risks for the notary/lawyer. A consistent total quality management strategy must also be implemented with this strategy. Without this strategy, it will be difficult to keep your tipsters “happy.”
Here, too, a roadmap is needed to show how real estate agents can infiltrate the network of this professional group. I don’t think that real estate agents can simply walk into a notary’s office and offer their services there.
Conclusion
These strategies represent the main strategies used by brokers to acquire properties. A combination of different strategies can be fruitful and is highly recommended. At the very least, every real estate broker should be aware that a pure social media strategy, where they believe that having a large number of followers alone will lead to properties, cannot, in my opinion, be an effective strategy.
In my opinion, advertising is not advisable from a business perspective, especially at the beginning of your brokerage career. When starting out as a self-employed person, it is necessary to manage your budget carefully. This is particularly important given that, according to the Salzburger Nachrichten newspaper, it often takes an average of three months to sell a property. This means you have to wait three months before generating your first sales revenue! In practice, it can even take up to six months!
It is therefore strongly recommended that, after developing a strategy, both young and established real estate brokerage companies adjust this strategy in order to tackle the real estate market.
Simply sitting in your office and hoping that you will receive orders will definitely not be enough. Rather, it means that you should combine various strategies if they fit the target group and strategy of the brokerage firm.
After successfully combining different strategies, it is essential to evaluate, adapt, and reformulate them at regular intervals. One cannot succumb to the illusion that a strategy chosen once can be implemented unchanged for the rest of one’s life.
Becoming successful means having a plan, pursuing it, evaluating it regularly and without compromise, adapting it at certain intervals, and starting over again.
An athlete who is working toward a specific goal follows a strict plan that he adheres to. However, this strict plan is regularly adapted. No athlete sticks to the same plan forever.
The muscle gets used to it, less progress is made, and the athlete loses their advantage. The same applies to real estate agents in a constantly changing world.
Do you have questions about property acquisition? Then shoot me a message.
Sources
Immobilienscout24.at ; Artikel Immobilienakquise: Tipps für die Immobilienakquise
Salzburger Nachrichten ; Artikel Immobilien werden oft privat verkauft
Tipps für eine erfolgreichere Objektakquise für Immobilienmakler ; Artikel zur Objektaquise
4 Regeln zum Erfolg ; Artikel; Haufe Akademie – die Objektaquise
Leave a Reply