REAL ESTATE // UPDATED SEPTEMBER 2026
Real Estate Agent Search and Marketing Statistics 2026
Real estate has better primary research behind it than almost any service category, because NAR has surveyed buyers and sellers annually for decades. It also has the single most distorted statistic in local marketing. Both are below. Every figure names its study and its year.
11 statistics · 5 sources · every one dated and linked
43%
Of home buyers took "looked online for properties for sale" as their first step. 21% contacted a real estate agent first.
National Association of Realtors, Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends · 2025
81%
Of home sellers contacted only ONE agent before choosing who would list their home. 15% contacted two.
National Association of Realtors · 2025
83%
Of buyers who used the internet rated photographs as a very useful website feature, the top of fourteen tested. Detailed property information followed at 79%, floor plans at 57%, and agent contact information at 47%.
National Association of Realtors · 2025
HOW THE SEARCH STARTS
Where buyers actually begin
43%
Of home buyers took "looked online for properties for sale" as their first step. 21% contacted a real estate agent first.
National Association of Realtors, Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends ·2025
This is the figure the industry’s favorite statistic distorts. See the rejected claims below. NAR’s 2026 edition moved behind its store, so this cites the 2025 edition, which NAR still hosts free.
51%
Of buyers found the home they ultimately purchased on the internet. 29% found it through their agent.
2 weeks
Median time a buyer spends searching before contacting an agent, out of a ten week median search in which they view a median of seven homes.
National Association of Realtors ·2025
The practical reading: there is a fortnight in which a buyer is forming an opinion of you and you do not know they exist.
40% / 17%
Of buyers found their agent through a referral from a friend, neighbor or relative, and used an agent they had worked with before. Only a small minority came through a website with no specific reference.
THE SHORTLIST
How few agents anyone actually talks to
81%
Of home sellers contacted only ONE agent before choosing who would list their home. 15% contacted two.
National Association of Realtors ·2025
The most important number on this page. If four sellers in five never hold a comparison, the decision is made before the conversation, on whatever they could find about you beforehand.
75%
Of home buyers interviewed only ONE real estate agent before hiring. 16% interviewed two.
59%
Of sellers hired the first agent they contacted. 47% of buyers did the same, and 71% of buyers approached only one or two agents.
Zillow Group Population Science, Consumer Housing Trends Report for Agents ·2025
Zillow runs the largest listings portal and has a commercial interest in findings about how people find agents. Its methodology is published: roughly 5,000 buyers and 6,200 sellers, fielded March to July 2024, weighted to Census benchmarks. It independently matches NAR’s figure, which is why it is here.
36% vs 28%
Of sellers first found the agent they hired through an online channel, versus through any referral. The online share has risen from 15% in 2018.
Zillow Group Population Science ·2025
Same vendor interest as above, and this is the finding Zillow benefits most from. NAR’s independent measurement still puts referrals ahead for buyers, so treat this as a direction of travel rather than a settled fact.
67%
Of sellers said online reviews and ratings of the agent or broker were important when choosing who to hire.
Zillow Group Population Science ·2025
Vendor survey, as above. It measures stated importance, not behavior. Nobody publishes how many reviews a seller actually reads or what rating they require.
WHAT THEY LOOK AT
The listing, and the device it is read on
83%
Of buyers who used the internet rated photographs as a very useful website feature, the top of fourteen tested. Detailed property information followed at 79%, floor plans at 57%, and agent contact information at 47%.
97%
Of consumers read online reviews when evaluating local businesses, and 41% say they always do, up from 29% the year before.
BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey ·2026
Cross-industry, not real estate specific, and BrightLocal sells reputation software. Included because no real estate equivalent exists. Any page presenting a figure like this as a real estate statistic is relabeling general data.
HOW OLD IS THE EVIDENCE
Every figure, by the year its study was published.
Marketing pages quote statistics without dates because the dates are usually embarrassing. This is the distribution for the 11 figures above, oldest 2025, newest 2026. Where a column is short, that year simply produced less research worth citing.
CHECKED AND REJECTED
Claims about real estate agents we could not verify.
These circulate widely. We went looking for the original study behind each one and could not find it. They are listed here so nobody repeats them, including us.
“Between 90% and 97% of home buyers start their search online”
Usually attributed to The National Association of Realtors
NAR has never published this. Its actual figure for the first step taken is 43% "looked online for properties for sale". The high number is a mangling of a separate NAR statistic, that 97% of buyers used the internet at some point in their search, which appeared in the Real Estate in a Digital Age report. NAR discontinued that series after 2021, so even the real 97% figure has had no refresh in five years.
“73% of homeowners are more likely to list with an agent who uses video”
Usually attributed to The National Association of Realtors, usually with no report named
We searched NAR’s Real Estate in a Digital Age reports, its Generational Trends reports, its Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers and its Member Profile. The figure is in none of them. NAR’s real data shows only a small minority of sellers report their agent used video hosting websites to market the home.
“87% of real estate agents fail within five years”
Usually attributed to The National Association of Realtors
No NAR publication contains it. NAR’s Member Profile, the only place such a figure could live, reports the opposite framing: the median member has 13 years of experience, 11% have a year or less, and three quarters are very certain they will still be active in two years. NAR does not publish a failure rate at all. The number circulates through brokerage recruiting and coaching content with no study behind it.
Plain answers.
Do home buyers really start their search on Google?
Not the way the industry says. NAR found 43% of buyers took looking online for properties as their first step and 21% contacted an agent first. The "90-something percent start online" figure everyone quotes is a distortion of a different, retired NAR statistic about buyers using the internet at some point in the process. The number to plan around is roughly half.
How many agents does a seller talk to before hiring one?
Usually one. NAR found 81% of sellers contacted a single agent before choosing and 15% contacted two, and 75% of buyers interviewed only one agent. Zillow’s own consumer survey independently found 59% of sellers hired the first agent they contacted. The decision is largely made before the listing appointment, on whatever the seller could find about you beforehand.
Are referrals still how people find agents?
Referrals remain the largest single channel but no longer a majority. NAR puts referrals from a friend, neighbor or relative at 40% of buyers, with another 17% reusing an agent they had worked with before. Zillow’s survey found 36% of sellers now first find their agent online versus 28% through any referral, with the online share more than doubling since 2018. Zillow has an interest in that finding, so treat it as a direction of travel rather than a settled fact.
How long do I have before a buyer contacts someone?
About two weeks. NAR reports a two week median between a buyer starting their search and first contacting an agent, inside a ten week median search in which they view seven homes. That window is spent looking at listings and looking up agents, and you have no way of knowing it is happening. It is the strongest argument for being findable before anyone reaches out.
Do I need video to win listings?
The statistic normally used to prove this is not real. "73% of homeowners say they are more likely to list with an agent who uses video" is attributed to NAR constantly and appears in none of its reports. NAR’s actual data points the other way: 2% of sellers said their agent used video hosting websites to market the home, and 12% said video at all. Video may still be worth doing. Just do not justify it with that number.
WHERE ALL OF THIS CAME FROM
5 sources, listed in full.
Ordered by how many figures on this page each one carries. Every link goes to the organization that ran the study, not to a summary of it.
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