Anyone Using Facebook Ads to Find Motivated Sellers?

Question

Hey everyone,

I’m actively searching for single family houses to buy and flip (or Wholesale if the opportunity arises) and always looking for better ways to generate off-market leads.

I’ve been experimenting with Facebook ads to target motivated sellers, but I’d love to hear from others who are doing the same. Have you had success using Facebook ads to find deals? What kind of results have you seen—quality of leads, cost per lead, conversion rate, etc.?

Also, if you’re willing to share, what kind of ad copy, targeting strategies, or lead funnels have worked best for you? Any lessons learned, mistakes to avoid, or things you wish you knew when you got started?

Looking forward to hearing your insights—thanks in advance!

Peter Mckernan · Answer

I have not done FB ads for them, but I have done PPC Google Ads. They have worked well, and are about 125-150 per lead. Spend is ads manager plus market spend (PPC spend), and closing about 4-5 deals off of them within the past 6 months. Not the biggest return as other marketing channels but this does give us some off market deals.

Caleb Brown · Answer

I am commenting to bump this and see what others will say. I have seen wholesalers in my area so I know it works.

Peter Mckernan · Answer

KPIs is what you need to be watching, and you have to have some retained earnings before you try them. Marketing, know you are going to try any avenue for 6-9 months before making a decision to cut it. Have a solid budget in mind too. Also, when you set a budget for PPC you may not be the highest bidder but put out what you can spend, close a deal and chip in a little more. If you are the highest of all time you can get killed each month. The more you place the more you get on leads, but there is a breakeven.

Michael S. · Answer

@Zach A. - we simply have networked with local wholesalers and agents to source off-market deals.  They know we close, so they are happy to work with us.

Tim Oppelt · Answer

Alright, let me break it down for ya. Ive run ppc for 200+ investors across the US and been wholesaling for 10 years myself using seo,ppc,fb,etc. Now results vary WIDELY by market, but heres a general benchmark to get you started. Happy to chat if you want closer estimations for your market. Im working on a YouTube video to better break all this down so you can get a good handle on it for your local market. Google Ads PPCCTR 4-6%CPC $40-$70Conv Rate 10-20%Leads Per Deal 15-20Rev Per Deal $30kRev Per Flip $56kA few things to note:These numbers are based on a pretty targeted keyword campaign, excluding broad keywords. A "lead" is defined by anytime somebody fills out a form in google (wholesaler, out of area, dead leads, etc). So true qualified lead to deal ratio is higher. Now some clients close 1 in 8, some are 1 in 30. It depends on your acq and dispo strategy and buy box. The higher the avg median home price in your market, the higher the CPC will be, as a general rule of thumb. Dont discount the power of a website to improve your sales. The more you can sell yourself and your company on the website, the easier it is to sell and negotiate when you talk to the seller, because they are already warmed up. Brand matters. If you are in market with less than 250k population, you may trouble spending your budget, and need to track impression share too. once it hits like 75% you are basically capped out and need to expand your location, add new keywords or add another strategy. Takes about 4 weeks avg to lock up deals with PPC deals. some are same day, some take months. But dont freak out after 90 days in and you've spend $5k-$10k and dont have a deal yet. Its not PPC's fault, its that real estate is a slow game. Dont blame the wrong thing. PPC is expensive, and it forces you to really understand your business and cash flow in order to manage it well. But the positive is that it is VERY powerful. FB Ads, we dont have as much repeatable success yet, so i dont do a ton of it. Its a pain in the butt to get setup and ads get rejected all the time and its a headache. Remember that FB is more similar to direct mail than it is Google Ads. FB is interruption-based outbound marketing, Google Ads is inbound. So the FB leads typically are cheaper and lower quality and you need to nurture them long term. give them free lead magnets and a have a good followup system in place. create some Youtube content to email to them too, that will help you stand out from the crowd. With FB Ads, content is king. Make a ton of creative like 10-20 ads per campaign and test a lot. Try out Fb's advantage+ campaign. Get clear pain points and USPs of your brand and incorporate all that in - marketing 101 stuff. the key to FB is having a backend content creation system. more content = more testing, less ad fatigue = better results.

Alex Willson · Answer

I ran lead gen on FB for Huntsville/Madison. My average CPL on “we buy houses” was between $28–$45 using instant forms plus a follow-up SMS within 5 minutes. Appointment conversion was about ~18%. I worked with Scalable.agency so I didn’t have to reinvent creatives every week; they test headlines and form fields for you and shift budget to what works. Their site even shows examples from niches like hardwood refinishing, so they’re not stuck on a single vertical.

Account Closed · Answer

Hi Zach, I ran a real estate team (residential & wholesaling) for over 10 years, and during that time we tested nearly every lead gen channel you can imagine. Our main business model is wholesale first, with the option to pivot into a listing if that makes more sense.  So everything we tried was filtered through that lens.

When it came to Facebook ads, we found they produced plenty of volume but very little real intent. Most of the leads were just curious homeowners clicking out of interest (mainly because they just happened to see the ad on their feed) not actual sellers motivated to move quickly. Over time, our ISA team grew tired of chasing down people who weren’t serious, and even when appointments were booked, our acquisition agents didn’t feel it was worth their time.

Then there’s Google Ads (PPC). The difference was night and day. With PPC, the intent is unlikely any other lead source.  People are literally going to their computers or phones and searching for solutions.

These are high-stakes, problem-driven searches from people ready to take action. That’s why, even after trying everything else, PPC has consistently outperformed every other channel for us.  To this day it's our #1 lead source.

For this type of quality, however, we had to be okay with paying higher per lead then other channels. Good leads aren’t cheap...our PPC cost per lead runs $150–$300, but they’re worth every dollar.

Also, as we optimized our campaigns, to lower overall acquisition costs, we layered in aggressive SEO alongside our ads. Here’s how it worked for us at a very high level:

• 1. PPC drives immediate traffic and conversions.  Our site converts 40–50% of clicks into actual form submissions (people giving you their info)
• 2. SEO builds organic leads over time, which brings down the blended cost of every lead.

1. PPC drives immediate traffic and conversions.  Our site converts 40–50% of clicks into actual form submissions (people giving you their info)

2. SEO builds organic leads over time, which brings down the blended cost of every lead.

For example:

• Spend $1,000 on PPC --10 leads ($100/lead).
• SEO generates 10 more organic leads.
• Total = 20 leads --blended cost per lead = $50.

Spend $1,000 on PPC --10 leads ($100/lead).

SEO generates 10 more organic leads.

Total = 20 leads --blended cost per lead = $50.

It takes serious effort and optimization and knowhow, but when done right, the PPC + SEO combo is hands-down the most sustainable, profitable lead gen engine I’ve seen in this business.Also, when you're running Google Ads, the ONLY metric you should care about is Cost Per Acquisition (lead).  And over time, your goal should be to try and get that down, while not degrading quality.  Cost Per Click doesn't mean anything if people aren't submitting their information on your website....

Richard Helppie-Schmieder · Answer

I build relationships with agents and just closed deal #20 for the year last week. I submit around 50 contracts a week with the official state contract (takes about an hour) and then work the contracts every week until the house sells. Typically 3 hours a week gets me 2 houses a month. Reach out and I can share the contract writer software.

Zach A. · Answer

I've heard you can quickly lose your shirt with PPC Google Ads since there is no cap.

Anyone Using Facebook Ads to Find Motivated Sellers?

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