Hey Coach: There Aren’t Enough Serious Buyers. How Do I Make It in Real Estate?
A straight answer for agents convinced the buyers have disappeared—and a practical way to determine where completed buyers are coming from and what successful agents are doing to reach them.
There aren’t enough serious buyers in my market. How am I supposed to make it in real estate?
The market has slowed, and what you are feeling is real. But buyers are still completing transactions. Your job is to identify where they are coming from, study the agents successfully reaching them and adjust your business.
Yes, the Market Slipped in June 2026
You are not imagining the slowdown. Nationally, existing-home sales declined 2.4% from May to June 2026. Pending home sales fell 5.4%.
June was softer. Agents are justified in recognizing that transactions became more difficult to produce.
However, existing-home sales remained 2.8% higher than one year earlier. Buyers did not disappear. Transactions still occurred.
National statistics cannot diagnose your individual market. Your MLS must tell you what happened in your geographical area, price points and property categories.
Now that we have acknowledged reality, let’s deal with the business question.
You’re telling me there aren’t enough serious buyers.
Fine. Where have you looked for them?
Take out a piece of paper and write down everything you have actually done to identify buyers who would purchase property in your geographical market.
Not everything you intended to do. Not everything you watched somebody else discuss on YouTube. What have you actually done?
Start With the Buyers Who Already Bought
Open your MLS and examine the buyer-side transactions that closed in your target area during the previous 90 days.
Those transactions prove that buyers existed, were motivated, obtained the necessary financing or funds, selected a property and reached the closing table.
Your first job is to determine where those buyers came from.
Were they local? Were they relocating? Were they renters becoming owners? Were they investors, retirees, military buyers, growing families or buyers moving into a different price point?
What locations do these buyer profiles frequent? Which websites, community pages, public groups, local events, businesses, professional organizations, publications or online channels appear relevant to them?
You are not stalking an individual buyer. You are building an evidence-supported marketing profile of a customer segment—the same thing responsible businesses do before spending marketing money.
If you do not know where completed buyers came from or where similar buyers direct their attention, what exactly is your buyer marketing based on?
Study the Top Three Buyer Agents
Your MLS is already showing you agents who are succeeding in the same market you claim has no buyers.
Identify the three agents representing the most buyers in your target area during the previous 90 days. Then examine the public business information they have deliberately placed online.
You are not copying their logo, stealing their material or pretending to be them. You are conducting competitive research.
Look for patterns shared by all three. Where do they consistently appear? What do they discuss? Which customer problems do they answer? What do reviewers praise? What market segment do they appear to understand better than everyone else?
Your successful competitors are leaving business breadcrumbs all over the public internet. Pick up the breadcrumbs.
Your Immediate Assignment
- Pull every buyer-side transaction that closed in your target area during the previous 90 days.
- Record property type, price range, financing, location and relevant buyer characteristics that can be reliably determined.
- Identify where those buyers originated whenever the available information supports a conclusion.
- Group completed buyers into usable customer profiles instead of treating “buyers” as one imaginary audience.
- Identify the three agents completing the most buyer-side transactions in that market.
- Review their public websites, social platforms, Zillow profiles, reviews, content, positioning and community visibility.
- Record repeatable patterns—not assumptions—shared by the successful agents.
- Build and test a marketing plan aimed at the buyer profiles, locations and channels supported by your research.
You Are Running a Business
Real estate is not a job that automatically places customers on your desk every Monday morning. You are operating a business.
Let me say this plainly because the mindset shift has to happen before the business can improve.
Not an employee waiting for assignments. Not someone entitled to a guaranteed stream of customers. You own and operate a real estate business. Start thinking, deciding and acting like it.
Yes, I said fucking business because “career” is too comfortable a word for what you have chosen to do.
A business researches customers, studies competitors, tracks acquisition sources, evaluates completed transactions and changes its strategy when conditions change.
Markets rise. Markets fall. Businesses adjust.
They do not deny a downturn. They acknowledge the numbers, assess the situation, find the remaining opportunity and redirect their resources.
Recognize When the Data Says Pivot
I have watched every season of Shark Tank, and I have never missed an episode. One lesson appears repeatedly regardless of which Shark is sitting in the chair:
Successful business owners recognize when it is time to pivot.
Entrepreneurs are praised when they recognize that the original approach is not working, examine the evidence and change direction. They are hammered when the data was sitting directly in front of them and they refused to respond.
That principle applies here.
Your research may tell you to change your buyer profile, geographical market, price point, marketing channel, property specialty, brokerage model or daily allocation of time.
It may even tell you to pivot away from being a commissioned agent.
That is not automatically failure. It may be the smartest business decision you make. The failure would be ignoring the information, spending more money and repeating the same process because admitting the need to pivot bruises your ego.
Hate me. Debate me. Tell me I am too blunt.
But answer this honestly: what do I gain by telling you to leave real estate if operating this business makes you miserable?
I do not want your money if you do not want to operate a real estate business. I do not want to sell you a subscription so you can spend another year forcing yourself into something that does not fit you.
Honest advice could save you years of association dues, brokerage charges, technology expenses, continuing education fees and emotional exhaustion.
What Your Research Must Answer
Stop Waiting for Tomorrow
Take out the paper. Pick up the pen. Write down everything you have actually done to locate serious buyers.
Pull the transactions. Find the top three agents. Review the public evidence. Build the buyer profiles. Identify the patterns.
Not tomorrow. Not after another motivational video. Not after somebody posts a new dance pointing at five lead-generation tips floating above their head.
Start now.
You Now Know What to Do
Acknowledge the slowdown, find the buyers who still completed transactions, study the agents successfully reaching them and adjust your business around the evidence.
Now Learn How to Do It
The member system provides the research framework, competitor-assessment worksheet, buyer-profile process, AI prompts, tracking tools and step-by-step 90-day acquisition plan.
Show Me HowYour Move
Before tomorrow, identify the buyer-side closings in your market and the three agents representing the most buyers. Acknowledge that the market is harder—but don’t tell me buyers do not exist until you have investigated the buyers who demonstrably did.
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