Updated October 22, 2026 · My Single Property Websites
Agents use "drip" for three different things, and they need different handling:
| Type | Who gets it | How it's sent | Use it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| One-to-one follow-up | One person | You, by hand, from your own email or phone | The first reply to any new inquiry, and anything after they've written back |
| Drip sequence | Everyone in one group, each starting on the day they joined | Automatically, email 1, then 2, then 3, on a schedule | The weeks after an inquiry, an open house or a home value request, while they decide |
| Newsletter | Your whole list at once | Automatically or by hand, same email to everyone on the same day | Past clients and your sphere, monthly or quarterly |
The first reply to a new lead should never be a drip. Answer it yourself, then let the sequence carry the weeks after. For open house visitors, our open house follow-up templates cover the first three personal messages.
Most leads aren't ready the week they first get in touch. From NAR's 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers (buyers who purchased between July 2024 and June 2025):
Two things follow. A buyer sequence that stops after a week stops long before most buyers decide. And the referral number is the case for keeping past clients on a newsletter: four in ten buyers found their agent through, or already knew them as, a friend, neighbor or relative.
These are our suggested starting points, not industry standards. Adjust the timing to your market, and remove anyone who replies, signs with another agent or unsubscribes.
| When | What it says |
|---|---|
| Same day | Your personal answer to their question, not part of the drip. Include the listing link. |
| Day 1 | The details people ask about next: the floor plan or 3D tour, taxes, HOA, open house dates. One link back to the listing. |
| Day 3 | Two or three similar homes, or an invitation to set up a search with you. |
| Day 7 | A short check-in: "Still looking? Here's what's changed on 412 Alder Lane." |
| Days 14, 28, 42, 56 | New listings in their price range and area, or the listing's status (price change, under contract, sold), with one useful note each time. |
| After that | Move them to your monthly newsletter, or stop. |
The first three touches are personal: a text that evening, an email the next day and a check-in about a week later (templates here). If they don't answer the third, stop. Move a visitor on to the day 14 to day 56 emails above only if they asked to hear about other homes. Skip anyone who told you they have an agent; follow up with their agent instead.
| When | What it says |
|---|---|
| Same day | Your personal reply with the estimate or a time to walk through the home, not part of the drip. |
| Day 3 | What sold near them recently and for how much, from your MLS. |
| Day 10 | What you'd fix, and what you'd leave alone, before listing a home like theirs. |
| Day 30, then monthly | A short market note for their neighborhood: new listings, sales, days on market. |
A newsletter, not a sequence: monthly or quarterly, plus a note on each client's home-purchase anniversary. Keep it about their home and their neighborhood (what sold nearby, a seasonal maintenance reminder, a local event), with one line saying you're glad to help them or anyone they know.
Short, plain and from you. Each one gives a reason to reply, and each ends with your postal address and an unsubscribe link, which CAN-SPAM requires; the ad-disclosure rule is covered below.
Listing inquiry, day 1
Listing inquiry, day 7
Home value request, day 3
Describe homes and neighborhoods, not the buyer you picture for them. HUD's advertising rule (24 CFR 100.75) makes it unlawful to publish any advertisement for the sale or rental of a dwelling "which indicates any preference, limitation or discrimination" based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin, and marketing emails are advertising. Our free fair housing word checker screens a draft before it goes into a sequence.
The federal CAN-SPAM Act covers "all commercial messages," and the FTC adds that "the law makes no exception for business-to-business email." Its requirements, from the FTC's CAN-SPAM compliance guide:
| Requirement | For a drip campaign, that means |
|---|---|
| Honest header information | The From name and address are really you or your brokerage |
| No deceptive subject lines | The subject matches what's in the email |
| Identify the message as an ad | The FTC says you "must disclose clearly and conspicuously that your message is an advertisement"; the law leaves you room in how you say it |
| Tell recipients where you're located | Your valid physical postal address in every email; a registered PO box or private mailbox counts |
| Tell recipients how to opt out | An unsubscribe link that keeps working for at least 30 days after you send |
| Honor opt-outs promptly | Within 10 business days |
| Monitor others acting for you | If your CRM, brokerage or a vendor sends for you, you're still responsible |
From the FTC's guide, checked October 22, 2026. The guide also notes that subscribers and members can opt out of marketing emails too.
The FTC's guide puts the penalty at up to $53,088 for each email in violation, and the FTC's September 2026 notice keeps its 2025 penalty levels unchanged for 2026. Messages whose purpose is to complete or update a transaction already under way (a closing date, a document to sign) are treated as transactional, not commercial. A message with only commercial content is commercial.
CAN-SPAM doesn't ask for opt-in permission before you email someone, but your email provider's terms and your brokerage's policy can be stricter. Adding sign-in sheet contacts to a sequence is the risky step, so ask your broker first.
Texting a sequence is a different legal regime. The FCC treats a text sent with an autodialer as a call under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and its rules (47 CFR 64.1200, restated in FCC 24-24, February 2024) require "the prior express written consent of the called party" for marketing. Other FCC rules, including Do Not Call, can apply to marketing texts too. FCC 24-24 also says consent can be revoked "in any reasonable manner" and revocations must be honored within 10 business days. One part of that rule, treating a stop request as applying to all of a sender's unrelated messages, has been delayed until January 31, 2027 (FCC DA 26-12). Many states add their own texting laws. If you plan to text leads automatically, get the consent wording reviewed before you start.
Not by opens. MailerLite's benchmarks (median of 3.6 million campaigns, December 2024 to November 2025) put real estate at a 40.37% open rate and 1.72% click rate, and MailerLite notes that Apple Mail Privacy Protection "automatically marks emails sent to Apple Mail clients as opened," so real open rates are lower than dashboards show. Count what you can trust instead: replies, showings and appointments booked, and unsubscribes. If one email in a sequence gets far more unsubscribes than the rest, rewrite or remove it.
A short series of emails you write once and your email tool or CRM sends automatically, on a schedule, to one kind of lead: people who asked about a listing, open house visitors, homeowners who asked what their home is worth, or past clients. A good one stops as soon as the person replies, so the conversation becomes personal.
Close together at the start and further apart after: for a fresh listing inquiry, the next day, a few days later and about a week later, then every week or two for a couple of months. For past clients and your sphere, monthly or quarterly. NAR's 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers puts the median home search at 10 weeks, so a buyer drip that ends after a week ends too soon.
For email, the federal CAN-SPAM Act is built around opt-out rather than opt-in: every commercial email needs your physical postal address and a working way to unsubscribe, and you must honor opt-outs within 10 business days. Marketing texts are different: under FCC rules, marketing texts sent with an autodialer need the person's prior express written consent. Your brokerage, your email provider and, for texts, state law can add rules. Not legal advice.
MailerLite's benchmarks for December 2024 to November 2025 put the median real estate open rate at 40.37% and the click rate at 1.72%. Open rates are inflated by Apple Mail Privacy Protection, which marks emails as opened automatically, so judge a drip by replies and appointments rather than opens.
We don't send drip email; your CRM does that. What we do is the page each email points at: a website for one listing, with the photos, the details and the open house dates in one place, your name and number on every view, inquiries sent straight to you, and an AI sales agent answering buyers' questions about the home.
Start free Open house follow-up templates →Related: Open house sign-in sheet · Fair housing words to avoid · Posting a listing on Facebook · Guides