Lights. Camera. Sold.
As new generations of homebuyers enter the housing market, real estate agents are adapting their marketing strategies to win their attention — and business.
Agents, once popping up on highway billboards and showing up at community events to draw homebuyers and sellers, are now building influencer-like presence on social media.
Marketing real estate online isn’t new, thanks to giant websites such as Zillow and Redfin, which have for years offered a platform for agents and properties with professional photos and videos. But some real estate agents are now taking to Instagram Reels and TikTok to build a base of followers and potential buyers.
Those agents offer raw, entertaining virtual home tours that are often boosted by polarized remarks from commentators who may be just curious. Still, agents say this marketing approach does ultimately yield legitimate buyer leads.
“I’ve never gotten someone to work with me through an open house,” said Monica Church, 30, a popular YouTuber turned Seattle real estate agent, “but I get several people a week who reach out to me through my social media.”
A growing influence
This shift toward using social media has turned hundreds of real estate agents, like Church, into “micro-celebrities.” Church has 186,000 followers on Instagram, and she posts videos of home tours and tips for Seattle buyers.
Seattle-area homebuyers are not alone in connecting with agents through social media. Millennials and Gen Z nationwide use all the tools available to them in the homebuying process, real estate agents say.
A RE/MAX report last year found 41% of Gen Z and millennial buyers and sellers surveyed use social media to learn about real estate. One in five used AI chatbots for real estate advice.
The influence of those tech-savvy generations on the market has been on the rise over the last decade.
Baby boomers still make up the lion’s share of homebuyers nationwide at 42%, but millennials alone have surpassed Gen X buyers, according to a 2025 National Association of Realtors report. Millennials make up 29% of buyers, while Gen X trails at 24% of buyers. Gen Z has just begun to emerge at 3%.
Although new buyers may use social media to initiate their homebuying journey, most follow in the footsteps of their parents and grandparents by using real estate agents. Nine out of 10 millennials use a real estate agent, according to another NAR report.
The pandemic boosted the rising trend. With scarce open houses, buyers were poised to seek out home tours and agents on social media, agents said.
Despite becoming an agent in the middle of the pandemic in 2021, Church has made 81 transactions since then — a rate above the national median. In 2023, the median number of transactions per agent was 10 a year, according to NAR data.
“If it weren’t for social media, I wouldn’t have sold a single house,” said Church.
Bait and reel
Seattle agent James Savereux, who earned his real estate broker license during the pandemic, shares a similar experience.
Business was slow for Savereux, 29, until he posted on TikTok a video of himself touring a $1.9 million home for sale in Woodinville in 2022.
He panned the camera around each room quickly while making quippy remarks, like Facetiming a friend. He noted the large kitchen island and griped about the property’s spider-guarded barn before asking viewers’ thoughts on the price. The video garnered around 6,100 views.
‘I was like, ‘Whoa, this kind of works,’” Savereux said.
Since then, he’s amassed 11,000 followers on TikTok and almost 42,000 on Instagram, where millennials frequent more often, he said.
Savereux knows agents who pour cash into drone shots or high-quality cameras. But people would rather see raw, realistic videos of homes they might buy, he said, which is why they go to social media.
In between videos of home tours, he posts memes about Washington’s cities and neighborhoods, which sometimes garner hundreds of thousands of views.
Savereux has found ways to make his videos of homes stand out as well.
One video shows him as an AI baby. Some videos are of unusual homes, such as castles or underground bunkers. Others invite viewers to share what they think about the price of a home with an extremely low or high price for Seattle.
“If you want something to go viral … show something interesting, something funny or something that is controversial and gets people upset,” he said. “The more comments you get, the more attention you get.”
Sometimes, Savereux purposefully doesn’t mention the downsides of properties, such as high homeowner association fees, to spark a flame in the comments, he said.
“People love to correct you. … It increases attention,” he said. “And the more attention it gets, (the more likely) the video is spread to an actual buyer that would be okay with whatever it is.”
Although his clients may not always buy the exact home they saw on social media, they’ll often work with him to find another home, he said.
‘Just fun,’ but essential
The properties that agents tour on social media can be homes they’re selling or homes represented by other agents.
The listing agent is often included in the caption. But it may not always be clear to the average social media user when an agent is representing the property they’re selling or just touring, since the strategies for drawing attention to both can blend.
Especially in times like these, where Seattle-area homes are sitting on the market longer, posting a home on social media gives sellers an edge over others who only advertise on Zillow or Redfin, agents said.
Church, the agent with 186,000 Instagram followers, said she receives dozens of comments asking for more information on the homes she represents.
It’s essential for any new agent to post homes on social media, she said.
Seattle-based Hannah Holser, a relatively new agent, agrees.
“It’s actually been really my only source of generating leads and picking up buyers,” said 22-year-old Holser, who got her license in May and now has a few thousand followers on Instagram and TikTok from home tour videos.
But even more experienced real estate agents whose careers began before the pandemic are finding success on social media.
“I was shocked that I got clients from (posting),” said Candace Hagen, 40, who has been an agent in Seattle for almost eight years. “My first year doing it, I got three buyers on Instagram. The next year, I got five.”
The days of agents’ faces on billboards are long gone, said Hagen, who now has around 11,500 followers on Instagram. Capturing attention is easier and cheaper than ever with social media.
Home tour videos are popping up — not as ads, but as entertainment — in people’s social media feeds.
“We used to have those TV shows on HGTV. Now people are going to Instagram…for that kind of experience,” said Hagen, who has been featured on the show House Hunters. “It’s just fun.”
Still, Church said posting on social media is like having a second full-time job.
She spends about half her time creating content for social media, but the number of clients her videos draw is worth it.
“It’s a catalyst for people starting their homebuying,” she said.
