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Real Estate Lead Response Time: The Numbers Agents Quote, Traced to Their Source

"78% of buyers pick the first agent who responds." "Agents take 917 minutes." We traced the lead-response statistics real estate agents repeat, and checked them against NAR's 2025 buyer data.

ConGreeto logo – blue chat bubble with two eyes, author avatar for the ConGreeto blogConGreeto TeamThe team behind ConGreeto, an AI sales assistant and sales pipeline in one, built by Brillnex Systems.
ConGreeto blog cover: Four widely quoted real estate response-time statistics, each labelled with what it actually is: 78% not found in NAR 2025, 917 minutes from 2014, 21x from a 2007 B2B study, and 74% interviewed one agent from NAR 2025.
Four numbers, four very different sources.

The real estate response-time numbers everyone quotes, and where they actually come from

Search "real estate lead response time" and you'll find the same four numbers on almost every page:

  • 78% of buyers work with the first agent who responds.
  • The average agent takes 917 minutes to reply to a lead.
  • Responding in 5 minutes makes you 21 times more likely to qualify the lead.
  • Most buyers only interview one agent.

They're quoted by coaches, CRM vendors and lead-gen companies, usually without a link, and often credited to a different source on each page. We build a website assistant that real estate teams use to answer enquiries, so these numbers matter to us. We went looking for the original studies.

The short version: one holds up and is recent, one is twelve years old, one comes from a study that had nothing to do with real estate, and one we couldn't find at all.

The four numbers, checked

The claim

Usually credited to

What we found

"78% of buyers work with the first agent who responds"

NAR, or Zillow

Not in either of NAR's 2025 buyer reports. The closest real figure is "74–75% of buyers interviewed only one agent", which is a different claim (see below).

"The average agent takes 917 minutes to respond"

Recent "industry surveys", sometimes Inman 2025

WAV Group, January 2014. A study of 384 brokers. Useful history, not a 2025 benchmark.

"5 minutes makes you 21x more likely to qualify a lead"

Real estate studies

Oldroyd / InsideSales, 2007. 15,000+ leads at six companies. Not real estate, and it measured qualification, not sales.

"Most buyers interview only one agent"

NAR

True. 74% of buyers in NAR's 2025 Profile, 75% in its 2025 Generational Trends report.

Here's each one in detail.

"78% of buyers work with the first agent who responds"

This is the most-quoted number in real estate lead follow-up, and the hardest to pin down. Pages credit it to NAR, to Zillow, or to "industry research". We searched both of NAR's 2025 buyer reports, the Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers and the Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends report, and it isn't in either. Neither asks buyers whether they chose the first agent who responded.

What the profile does contain is close enough to be confused with it:

"Most buyers interviewed only one agent before making their decision — this was true for 76 percent of repeat buyers and 67 percent of first-time buyers." (NAR 2025 Profile, Exhibit 4-8; 74% of all buyers)

"Interviewed only one agent" and "picked whoever replied first" aren't the same thing. 43% of buyers were referred to their agent by a friend, neighbour or relative (the most common route in the 2025 Profile). They didn't send five enquiries and wait to see who was fastest. They asked a friend, called that agent, and hired them.

The Generational Trends report goes further and asks buyers what mattered most when they chose their agent. Only 5% picked "agent is timely with responses". Experience (23%) and honesty (19%) came first. Yet when the same buyers rated agent qualities, 95% called responsiveness "very important".

That's the real lesson, and it's more useful than the 78% myth: speed rarely wins you the client on its own, but being slow is close to disqualifying. Buyers assume a good agent answers. They don't hire you for it; they drop you without it.

If an older NAR report or a Zillow survey is the true origin of the 78% figure, we couldn't trace it. Until someone links the original, treat it as unverified.

"The average agent takes 917 minutes"

This one has a real source, but it's old. WAV Group published it in January 2014 from a study of 384 brokers: 48% never answered the enquiry at all, and the average response among those who did was 917 minutes.

It's still a useful number. It shows how bad response times were before most agents had a CRM on their phone. But it predates every major tool agents use today, and it's frequently presented as current. If you quote it, say 2014.

"Responding in 5 minutes makes you 21x more likely to qualify"

This is the famous Oldroyd / InsideSales lead-response study from 2007. It's a solid piece of work: over 15,000 leads, more than 100,000 call attempts, six companies, three years. The odds of qualifying a lead fell 21-fold when the first call went out at 30 minutes instead of 5.

But none of the six companies were real estate brokerages, and the study explicitly did not measure whether those leads turned into sales. The pattern (interest fades within minutes) very likely applies to home buyers too. The number itself doesn't belong to real estate.

"Most buyers interview only one agent"

This one holds up, and it's recent. NAR surveyed buyers who purchased a primary residence between July 2024 and June 2025 and received 6,103 responses (methodology, p.116). 74% of all buyers interviewed only one agent.

What the 2025 NAR data actually tells an agent

Drop the zombie statistics and the real data still makes a strong case for answering fast. It just makes it for a different reason.

Buyers start online, without you. In the 2025 profile, 46% of buyers said their first step was looking at properties online. Only 20% started by contacting an agent. And 52% found the home they eventually bought on the internet.

They want facts first. Buyers who searched online rated photos (81%) and detailed property information (77%) as very useful website features, well ahead of agent contact details (44%).

They take their time. The median search lasted 10 weeks.

And they mostly stop at one agent. 74% interviewed only one.

They expect an answer, but they hire on trust. 95% rate responsiveness very important; only 5% say it was the deciding factor.

Put together: a buyer spends weeks looking at listings on their own, usually in the evening, and when they finally reach out about a specific property, there's a good chance the agent they talk to first is the only agent they ever talk to. The speed claim isn't "78% pick the fastest". It's "most buyers only have one real conversation, so make sure it's with you, and make it useful enough to earn their trust".

The metric that matters: time to a useful answer

Most speed-to-lead advice measures the wrong thing. An auto-text that says "Thanks for reaching out! An agent will contact you shortly" lands in 30 seconds and counts as an instant response in your CRM. To the buyer it says nothing.

What the buyer wants at 9:40 PM is an answer:

  • Is 14 Maple still available?
  • Does it have a garage?
  • What are the HOA fees?
  • Is there anything similar under $450k with three bedrooms?
  • Can I see it Saturday?

Track time to a useful answer, not time to first message. If your honest number is "next morning, when I'm back at my desk", that's the gap to close.

Five ways to close it

None of these needs new software. The last one does.

  1. Put the facts on the listing page. HOA, taxes, parking, school district, pet rules. Every question the page answers is one the buyer doesn't have to send you at 10 PM.
  2. Answer the questions that come up every week. Write plain answers to the questions you hear repeatedly (buying process, closing costs in your state, how showings work) and put them on your site.
  3. Make the enquiry form ask one good question. Name, phone or email, and "what are you looking for?" as free text. Drop the dropdowns.
  4. Set a team rule for after-hours leads. Decide who answers, how fast and through which channel. Then measure it once a month with the same CRM you already use.
  5. Let your website answer from your own listings. This is where a website assistant fits. ConGreeto answers from the listings and pages on your own site: availability, features, price, similar homes. It talks with visitors in their own language, saves their name, phone and what they're looking for as the conversation happens, and scores the lead so you know who to call first in the morning.

If you add an assistant, hold it to the same standard as a new team member:

  • It should answer from your listings, not from the internet. A bot that describes "homes in the area" in general terms is worse than no bot.
  • It must follow fair housing rules. Automated replies are still your replies. An assistant should describe properties, not neighbourhoods' demographics, and never steer. The HUD fair housing guidance applies whether a person or a program writes the answer.
  • It should hand off clearly. The goal is a warm lead with context in your inbox, not a bot that tries to negotiate.
  • It should say it's an assistant. Some buyers want a person. They should always see your phone number.

What a morning lead should look like

Lead · 9:52 PM · Hot — Asked about 14 Maple (3 bed). Wanted to know HOA and whether the garage fits two cars. Pre-approved, wants a showing this weekend. Also asked for anything similar under $450k. Left phone; prefers text.

That's a call you can make at 8:30 AM knowing exactly what to say. Compare it with a form that says "Interested in 14 Maple" and an email address.

Frequently asked questions

How fast should a real estate agent respond to a lead?

As fast as you can give a useful answer, ideally within minutes. The 2007 lead-response research shows interest fading within the first half hour, and NAR's 2025 data shows most buyers only interview one agent. An instant auto-reply with no information doesn't count.

Is it true that 78% of buyers choose the first agent who responds?

We couldn't find that figure in either of NAR's 2025 buyer reports, which is where it's usually credited. NAR does report that 74–75% of buyers interviewed only one agent, which is a different finding. Many of those buyers came through referrals, not a race between agents, and only 5% named fast responses as the main reason they chose their agent.

Where does the 917-minute figure come from?

A WAV Group study of 384 real estate brokers, published in January 2014. It's often presented as current. It isn't.

Should a real estate website have a chatbot?

If buyers browse your listings outside office hours (most do), something should answer them. That can be a well-written FAQ, a fast team rota, or an assistant that answers from your own listings and hands off to you. A generic bot that can't see your listings won't help.

Sources

Related reading

ConGreeto is a website assistant for businesses whose customers have questions before they buy. Try it on congreeto.com.