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Many get real estate bios wrong.

They just use templates and generators blindly, and the result doesn’t stand out, creating what I call a “Bullshit-Bingo” effect.

You miss a great real estate lead generation opportunity by doing it that way.

Why?

Because as you will learn in this article, a real estate bio is not only about introducing the real estate professional but also much more a way to generate leads.

Therefore, in today’s article, you will learn…

…what a real estate bio is
…why do you want to have one in the first place
…what makes a good killer real estate bio and how to write one from scratch to actually generate leads
…whether it should be written in first or third person
…how to write a real estate bio for a new realtor without experience
…how to write one for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
…whether you should use real estate bio templates, creators, and generators (I spoiled that one already)
…what to consider when writing one for other types of real estate professionals (e.g., developers, investors, etc.)
…and why you may want to make a real estate bio video

So, let’s get started right away.

 

What Is a Real Estate Bio?

A real estate bio is a way for real estate professionals such as realtors, developers, and real estate investors to introduce themselves to potential clients.

Traditionally, it is done in written form, and the text is published, for example, on a real estate brokerage’s website for each agent, but it can also be done in video format.

Most real estate bios contain a headshot, information about past sales statistics, awards, and other accomplishments, how the real estate professional is different, additional training that was accomplished, individual accomplishments, what real estate experience the real estate professional has, and a personal story.

 

Why You Want to Have a Real Estate Bio in the First Place

Nobody is telling you this bluntly; at least, I didn’t find many sources during my research that did, but you want to have a real estate bio in the first place because of real estate lead generation.

Many beat around the bush and mention that the real estate bio is to show how you are different compared to your competition, build credibility with prospects, establish a connection with the local community, demonstrate leadership, or showcase expertise.

But straight to the point – to what end are you doing this in the first place?

Would you write a real estate bio or shoot a real estate bio video if you didn’t get anything out of it?

No, why should you?

But in my opinion, it aims to persuade a prospect to act and to start working with you as a real estate professional.

And I may sound like a broken record if you have already read other articles from me, but persuading someone to act and to work with you or converting a prospect into a lead with the written word sounds a hell lot like copywriting to me.

This brings me to the next section.

 

What Makes a Good Killer Real Estate Bio

Many articles answer this question by mentioning several elements you need to include in a real estate bio.

So, you will find tips like the following:

  • Mention the value you provide
  • Mention the real estate niche you specialized in and show how you are different compared to your competition
  • The first sentence is crucial
  • Use a quality headshot
  • Tell a story/your life story
  • Include social media links
  • Mention additional training you may have had
  • Use the brokerage’s reputation in your favor
  • Mention awards you received
  • Include past sales statistics
  • Leverage past experiences
  • Write engaging and enthusiastic

Don’t get me wrong, they are all good tips, but nothing mentions the system behind them and why to use them.

It’s getting old, but it’s copywriting principles, the power of the written word to persuade your target prospects to act (e.g., making an appointment with you).

And many of the above tips can be put into different categories of existing copywriting principles. 

That’s what I will do next.

 

How to Write a Real Estate Bio from Scratch to Actually Generate Leads

But first, let’s start with some time-tested copywriting principles you could already read about in my articles “Sales Copy for Real Estate – The Ultimate Guide” and “How to Write an Expired Listing Letter. “

Or you may have already read about it.

To become familiar with the (real estate) copywriting process, I will give you the summarized steps and principles and categorize the above tips.

When I include one of the above tips, I will bold the text.

1) Determine the goal of the (real estate) sales copy for your real estate bio: create credibility to generate seller and/ or buyer leads

2) Researching the seller’s and/or buyer’s needs, wants desires, problems, pains, and emotions.

3) Determine the benefits you can offer potential sellers and/ or buyers (Mention the value you provide).

4) Determine your unique selling proposition (USP) to differentiate yourself from your competition in how you address potential sellers’ and buyers’ needs, problems, wants, etc. (Mention the niche you are specialized in and show how you are different compared to your competition).

5) Use one of the many time-tested copywriting formulas to write the actual sales copy (your real estate bio in this case), such as AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) and/or PAS (problem, agitate, solve).

From the above tips, “the first sentence is crucial” and “use a quality headshot” would be part of the ‘get attention’ part, and “tell a story” would be part of creating interest in AIDA.

6) Fine-tune the sales copy using persuasive elements (e.g., show credibility). In this category, these tips from above would be included:

  • Include social media links
  • Mention additional training you may have had
  • Use the brokerage’s reputation in your favor
  • Mention awards you received
  • Include past sales statistics
  • Leverage past experiences
  • Write engaging and enthusiastic

Now, let’s write the actual real estate bio using copywriting principles and assume the following for our imaginary real estate agent.

  • Agent’s Name: Kelly Simmons
  • Agent type: seller agent
  • Real estate niche: waterfront single-family homes in Boston, MA
  • Sellers’ needs, wants, desires, problems, pains, and emotions: pricing the home correctly, maintaining a home show-ready (e.g., getting retaining walls ready on time – relevant for waterfront homes), selling within two weeks at top price to be liquid enough to buy next home, stress, limited planning due to showings.

 

Real Estate Bio Example by Using Copywriting Principles

  • PROFESSIONAL HEADSHOT
  • Kelly Simmons (Your Waterfront Specialist in Boston)
  • [Social media links]
  • [Contact information]

Ten years ago, when I showed my first single-family home in the Boston area, I could hardly imagine that retaining walls would become such an important topic for sellers of waterfront properties in this community. (Attention/ first sentence with little anecdote and mentioning of one of the typical seller problems in the area).

For more than ten years now, and after 500 transactions during these years, I have known about the kind of special stress a seller in my community can experience. (create further interest and mention pain/problem(s), some injection of the persuasive element of credibility).

Getting a waterfront property ready to sell is much more than just the outside and inside of the house. It’s also about the water and the terrain change that can eat your home away and make it slip down the hill. (create further interest and agitate the particular pain/problem).

So, while this retaining wall thing became a pattern right from the start of my career when I was already showing homes, I decided to get additional home inspection training in my spare time to serve my Boston waterfront sellers even better.

For many years now, I have been helping them with my well-organized team of retaining wall specialists to speed up the process of getting and maintaining their homes show-ready.
(Desire/Solve)

In contrast to other agents in the Boston area, I have a well-organized and streamlined process from getting your waterfront home show-ready within two weeks, including home staging and, of course, getting a retaining wall ready (if needed), and finally selling it within two weeks afterward at top-dollar. (Desire/Solve, and positioning with USP)

So, the moment you start working with me, you can already start looking for your next home because four weeks from now, you will likely be sitting at the table as a buyer with a seller.

Make an appointment today with me by clicking the button below (Action).

SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENT [Button]

 

Should a Real Estate Bio Be in First or Third Person?

Writing a real estate bio in the first or third person depends on one crucial factor – congruent or incongruent communication.

Let me explain a bit.

When humans communicate, they do it verbally and non-verbally (body language).

What happens when you speak with someone whose body language is misaligned with what comes out of their mouth?

Exactly, you start to doubt the message they are communicating because it is incongruent.

By the way, this is confirmed in the marketing field according to a study done by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem published in the Journal of Accounting & Marketing.

Now you may wonder where the heck I am going with this.

Let me explain.

Suppose you are not a one-man/woman show and have a larger brokerage firm with five or more realtors on your team, and all of them have their own page on your brokerage’s website.

In that case, using the third person for the agent’s bios is probably more congruent.

Why?

Because your company’s website visitors will perceive you as a larger company where they usually expect more corporate-style communication.

Your website’s design and remaining pages and how visitors perceive it could be considered the non-verbal communication part between humans, and the actual copy of the real estate bio is the verbal part.

If you use real estate bios written in the first person, the visitor, seller, or buyer prospects could perceive the bio’s message as incongruent.

The same is also true vice versa. If you are a one-man/woman, show with just one agent’s bio published on your website, using the third person could also be perceived as incongruent. So, it is likely better to use the first person.

In my opinion, it’s even a bit more complex than that.

You could also have a website for a larger brokerage where the copy across all pages is more personal, not using much of a corporate writing style.

In that case, you may also use the first person in the agents’ bios because it would be again more congruent and consistent with the overall website’s communication and a more personal touch.

So, you want to consider the above as a rough orientation.

If you want to know what is better, I suggest making two real estate bio versions, one in the first person and one in the third person and then split test them.

And then, after a while of testing, you stay with the one that converts prospects better into leads.

 

How to Write a Real Estate Bio for a New Realtor with No Experience

real estate bio

Writing a lead converting real estate bio for new realtors is similar to the situation I discussed in my article “How to Write an Expired Listing Letter [So it Converts].“

The main challenge is compensating for the lack of credibility that comes with having less experience, particularly in the real estate field in the beginning stages.

So, you will not be able to use phrases like this one from my above example:

“For more than ten years now and after 500 transactions during these years, I know about the kind of special stress a seller in my community can experience.”

To compensate for this disadvantage, I will borrow a bit from the abovementioned article, where I already worked that out.

At the end of this section, I will modify the example from above for a new agent.

There are four persuasion tactics from the world of copywriting you can use:

  • Creating credibility by osmosis or borrowed credibility
  • Getting authority via quotes and statistics
  • Offering guarantees
  • Make them like you by anticipating their doubts by being honest
  • Using the natural human association fallacy would create credibility by osmosis or borrowed credibility.

It is like the college kid hanging out with the nerd group.

Although she or he may not be really a nerd, this nerdy reputation will likely rub off, and thus, their environment will perceive her as a nerd.

Getting authority via quotes and statistics is similar to borrowed credibility.

You will likely be perceived as more authoritative when you use famous quotes and statistics that align with your message.

You reduce the perceived risk of working with you as a new realtor when you offer guarantees.

It is considered a classic risk reversal method, but it may be challenging because of legal regulations or what the respective brokerage allows.

And finally, you can make them like you by being straightforward and honest about being new to the real estate game.

Not for nothing in marketing and sales; you often hear that you need to make people know, like, and trust you to make a sale.

It takes advantage of another psychological fallacy or bias called the bias from liking or loving, which is covered in-depth in the Book “Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion” by Rober Cialdini.

Below you will find the real estate bio version for new realtors taking the priorly discussed persuasive elements into account.

 

Real Estate Bio Example for New Realtors by Applying Four Persuasive Tactics

  • PROFESSIONAL HEADSHOT
  • Kelly Simmons (Your Waterfront Specialist in Boston)
  • [Social media links]
  • [Contact information]

One month ago, when I showed my first single-family home in the Boston area, I could hardly imagine that retaining walls would be such an important topic for sellers of waterfront properties in this community. (Attention/ first sentence with little anecdote and mentioning of one of the typical seller problems in the area).

So, as you can see, I am new to the real estate game.

However, my hard-working ethic and marketing and sales experience I brought with me from my 15 years in the automobile industry with [mention famous brand] let me figure out pretty quickly the kind of special stress a seller in my community can experience. (create further interest and mention pain/problem(s), some injection of the persuasive element of credibility by osmosis or borrowed credibility, and being honest).

Working with a great team at [mention brokerage with a great reputation] with 50 years of experience in the Boston area, I am well aware that getting a waterfront property ready to sell is much more than just the outside and inside of the house.

It’s also about the water and the terrain change that can eat your home away and make it slip down the hill. (create further interest, agitate the particular pain/problem, and inject some more borrowed credibility).

So, while this retaining wall thing became a pattern right from the start of my career, I am now getting additional home inspection training in my spare time to serve my Boston waterfront sellers even better.

Since [brokerage name] has been well-established for decades, I can help our sellers with my well-organized team of retaining wall specialists to speed up the process of getting and maintaining their homes show-ready. (Desire/Solve)

In contrast to other agents in the Boston area, I have a well-organized and streamlined process from getting your waterfront home show-ready within two weeks, and that includes home staging and, of course, getting a retaining wall ready (if needed), and finally selling it within two weeks afterward at top-dollar. (Desire/Solve, and positioning with USP)

All sellers working with me get my “new-agent guarantee,” which includes free home staging and free show-ready maintenance if I don’t sell your home within two weeks after it is show-ready. (offering a guarantee/risk reversal)

So, the moment you start working with me, you can already start looking for your next home because four weeks from now, you will likely be sitting at the table as a buyer with a seller.

Make an appointment today with me by clicking the button below (Action).

“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” – Vincent van Gogh (Getting authority via quotes)

SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENT [Button]

 

 

How to Write a Real Estate Bio for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

Remember when I wrote about congruence in communication above?

Social media is a more personal media channel, and the users usually expect to interact with people, not corporations.

This means you want to avoid writing your bio in the third person.

It will also be hard to split-test two real estate bio versions (one in the third person, the other in the first person).

You could only do this by running ads and tracking the metric of CTRs (click-through rates) or even CVR (conversion rates).

Your real estate bio would be the ad copy in that case.

Everything else stays pretty much the same in terms of copywriting principles.

Nevertheless, there is a vast difference. Except for Facebook, you can’t use your whole real estate bio “sales copy” as the text for your Twitter or Instagram bios.

Why?

These social media platforms heavily limit the number of characters you can use, and these are the character limits you have to deal with in the spaces available for your bio:

  • Twitter: 160 characters
  • Instagram: 150 characters
  • Facebook (not bio, but About You page): 2000 characters (between 285 and 500 words)

So, except for Facebook, you must deal with a heavy character limit.

This means that the best chance of using the same real estate bio you use for your real estate website (e.g., the one I wrote above) would be on Facebook.

For the remaining platforms (Twitter and Instagram), we will need to rely on something different from sales copywriting.

What would this be?

It is a good headline, which in AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) is part of “attention.”

In my article “Sales Copy for Real Estate – The Ultimate Guide for Better Conversions,“ I already discussed different time-tested headline formulas you could use.

Let’s apply one of them to my first real estate bio, such as ROT (Results – Objections – Time).

That’s one of my favorites, and if you get only two elements in the headline, it’s already okay.

Ideally, you have all three, but sometimes, we need to shorten things because of limiting factors.

So, the short bio for Instagram and Twitter could then be something like the one below:

PROFESSIONAL HEADSHOT
Kelly Simmons

Bio: Your Waterfront Specialist in Boston Selling Your Home at Top Dollar within Two Weeks Even Though Your Retention Wall Isn’t Ready Yet

If you want additional inspiration from different examples, you may also want to read this article from “the BrandBoy.”

 

Summarizing the Principles to Write a Real Estate Bio with a Questionnaire

Now, let’s summarize the principles of writing a real estate bio, and to give you a sort of checklist; I prepared a small questionnaire below.

1) What is the goal of your real estate bio?

2) Do you know or can you learn about your typical prospect’s needs, wants, desires, problems, pains, and emotions? How can you find this out?

3) What benefits and values can you offer potential sellers and/or buyers?

4) What is unique about the services you can offer as a real estate professional compared to your competitors regarding your typical sellers’ and/or buyers’ needs, wants, problems, etc.? Could you specialize in a real estate niche (e.g., waterfront homes in the Boston area)?

5) How can you include the replies to the above questions in one of the many copywriting formulas, such as AIDA or PAS? As part of getting attention, how can you make your first sentence special so it grabs attention?

6) How can you fine-tune the sales copy for your real estate bio by using different persuasive elements? (e.g., additional training, borrowing credibility via your broker, awards, sales statistics, past experiences outside of real estate, etc.)

7) Can you do a split test with two versions (first person, third person) of your real estate bio to find out which generates more leads?

 

Real Estate Bio Templates, Generators, and Creators – Should You Use Them?

During my research, I read almost a hundred different real estate bio examples across various websites that provide examples.

Many of them were presented as great examples, but unfortunately, in many cases, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with them as being great.

At least not when you want them to accomplish the goal of generating real estate leads.

Some websites also include real estate bio templates, generators, and creators you can use to quickly create one.

But after you have read the above, I ask if you think using them is still a good idea.

When many real estate professionals use them (because they can save you time writing one), prospects will come across bios that basically look and read the same.

You will have difficulty standing out.

In this context, I almost inadvertently think of a game called “Bullshit Bingo” or “Buzzword Bingo.”

Bullshit Bingo is a game where you prepare bingo cards with typical terms of a particular topic or a field (e.g., politics), and when watching an interview or a debate, you tick them off when they are used.

When you get to a certain number of words you defined beforehand that appear in a row, you can signal “bingo” to other players (source).

So, where I am going with this is this.

When you rely heavily on pre-made templates and generators for your real estate bio, where certain words are often used, the different bios may fall prey to the “Bullshit-Bingo” effect when your prospects read them.

Therefore, from the websites I found where real estate bio examples were discussed, I especially liked the section on outside-the-box examples towards the middle of this article.

 

Writing a Real Estate Bio for Other Real Estate Professionals and Niches

Other real estate professionals may need and should have a real estate bio, such as CEOs, developers, or investors.

So, would you say they need to be different from the above?

Yes. And no.

Regarding the copywriting principles that we can use, everything stays the same.

The only elements that change will be the answers you will work out by answering the questions in the questionnaire section above.

So, the prospects will have different needs, problems, pains, wants, etc.

Also, your unique selling proposition will be different, and the value you can provide as a developer or investor, and you may be able to use different additional persuasive elements.

In the case of a real estate developer bio, the benefit or value you can provide could be, for example, high-quality constructions in a short amount of time complying with green building standards (your niche and/or USP).

 

Why You May Want to Make a Real Estate Bio Video

In my article “Does Video Help Sell Real Estate?“, I covered several beneficial statistics of using video for lead generation.

Some of the stats I collected mentioned that video consumption on mobile phones rises by 100% every year, and using them on a landing page can increase conversions by 80% or more.

So, since we initially agreed that one of the principal goals of a real estate bio includes generating leads, you may want to try it and create a real estate video bio.

You could then split-test not two but three different versions in the end: one written real estate bio in the first person, one in the third person, and one video bio in the first person.

Sure, you could also test a fourth, a video bio in the third person.

But the latter would mean more production efforts.

Why?

It would resemble almost a reporting-style video like the ones you may have watched in the news when person XYZ is introduced to the viewers by a third-person narrator, and many cuts and B-Role are used.


This article has been reviewed by our editorial team. It has been approved for publication in accordance with our editorial policy.


Tobias Schnellbacher