Author: Jamie Saine

Just like that, another year is almost gone. And what a year it’s been! From the impact of AI to increasing regulations on real estate wholesaling to a still questionable real estate market, 2025 kept investors on their toes and gave them a lot to think about.

And next year is sure to be just as exciting! 

To help you prepare, we talked to some real estate industry experts to get their predictions for 2026 and how investors can prepare.

There will be more opportunity than ever in real estate over the next 5 years, but it’ll take a big change in how you do business. — Trever Mauch

Key Takeaways

• AI search and state regulations on residential wholesaling had a major impact on the real estate investing landscape in 2025.
• Real estate investors need to step up their game in 2026. Those who aren’t ready to commit to better processes, tools, and talent will find themselves out of a job.
• AI is going to be just as big — if not bigger  — in 2026 (surprise!). Real estate investors need to learn how to use it wisely and optimize for AI search.
• 2026 will be the year of focusing on the right deals instead of just deal volume. This involves building the right relationships and taking the right approach to each opportunity.

Table of Contents

• Impacts to real estate investing in 2025
• AI has a HUGE Impact on Search Traffic
• Growing Real Estate Wholesale Regulation
• How the real estate market will change in 2026
• Investors need to step up their game in 2026
• How to be a successful investor in 2026
• AI in 2026
• Prep for a Successful 2026

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Impacts to real estate investing in 2025

In 2025, we saw some major impacts to real estate investing. You should know about all of these as we go into the new year.

AI has a HUGE Impact on Search Traffic

If your web traffic or leads have dipped this year, it might not be a softening market or increased competition. It might be the impact of AI search.

AI has been a major theme of 2025 across all industries, and one of the most noticeable impacts is how it’s changed people’s search habits. While the old routine was to go to your favorite search engine and click on a link that looked relevant, AI has swept that process away almost entirely.

A solid half (50%) of consumers purposefully use an AI search tool like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity, according to an October report from McKinsey & Company. And these folks aren’t just looking for information. The majority of users told McKinsey that “it’s the top digital source they use to make buying decisions.” Meaning they’re turning to AI for recommendations and insights, not just a list of potential services or providers. The report goes on to predict that AI search tools could reduce traffic from traditional search channels (like Google or Bing) by 20-50%.

Even consumers still using a traditional search engine are likely to be hit with an AI result first anyway. The McKinsey report found that roughly 50% of Google searches return an AI Summary Overview, and the trends point to that number increasing to 75% of searches by 2028 (though I’d honestly be surprised if it takes that long). Real estate investors who have honed in their SEO to rank high in search results have a solid foundation set for AI search, but they can’t rest on their laurels.

Learn how to adjust your SEO for AI search >

Growing Real Estate Wholesale Regulation

States regulating residential wholesaling is nothing new (it’s been happening since at least 2019, when Illinois updated its Real Estate License Act). This year, multiple states introduced, passed, or implemented their own wholesaling laws:

• Pennsylvania began requiring people who wholesale residential real estate to have a real estate license beginning in January 2025.
• Tennessee signed a wholesaling bill into law in late March 2025 that went into effect only two weeks later (on April 8, 2025).
• Ohio’s Senate unanimously passed SB155 in June 2025 to introduce state wholesaling regulations, and the bill was signed by the Ohio governor late this year.
• Oregon requires residential property wholesalers to register with the state, effective July 1, 2025.
• Maryland’s wholesaling disclosure law went into effect on October 1, 2025.
• Oklahoma started imposing several requirements and restrictions on licensed and unlicensed wholesalers on November 1, 2025.
• Connecticut passed legislation (as part of its state budget) requiring real estate wholesalers to register with the CT Department of Consumer Protection starting July 1, 2026.
• North Carolina introduced House Bill 797 in April 2025 that would impact wholesaling with an “effective” date of October 1, 2025. As far as I can tell, it’s still sitting with the NC Senate, but if you wholesale in North Carolina keep an eye out for potential legal requirement changes.

This is a reminder to keep a close eye on the requirements and regulations in anywhere you wholesale real estate. Whether you’re just getting started or have been in the game for a while, things can change.

For those hopeful of preventing strict regulations on wholesale real estate, presenting the right message could be key.

“Wholesaling has been branded ‘predatory’ by the retail real estate lobby. In reality, the vast majority of wholesalers are doing a massive service to the market  — taking non-sellable real estate and getting more inventory on the market, solving problems agents can’t solve with a listing, tackling the hardest properties, increasing property values over the long term, etc.,” said Trevor Mauch, Carrot CEO.

Communicating these benefits to lawmakers could help make sure sensible — rather than overbearing — regulations are put in place in states considering them.

How the real estate market will change in 2026

The state of the real estate market has been a hot topic for several years now, and it’s clear that investment opportunities have cooled off since their pandemic-years peak. But what wil happen in 2026 is anyone’s guess. Some real estate pros think it will be more of the same, while others feel the dam will finally burst.

Dean Rogers, an expert flipper and wholesaler in California and trusted REI coach, doesn’t see things changing much. “The market will stay stagnant and relatively stuck.”

But Brandon Jarvela, an 8-figure investor with more than 600 real estate students, thinks 2026 could be the year the REI space sees more movement again. “I think this could be the year of the inventory snapback. For the for two years, we’ve all been living in this weird low inventory limbo with pent-up sellers and confused buyers. I think that tension is gonna break. We’ve got a wave of financial pressure that’s hitting every day homeowners, and I think we’re gonna see a sharp rise in off-market opportunity for the investors who are prepared for that type of velocity. Investors who aren’t just cherry picking are gonna win big time.”

Carrot CEO Trevor Mauch predicts real estate markets will stabilize a bit, with properties moving “a tab faster” than they did this year. But overall, he doesn’t see a huge change for next year. Those who want to survive, however, have to be ready to adapt.

“We’re in a transitioning market, and there won’t be big appreciation like there was in 2020-2024. This makes it so flippers who didn’t operate effectively aren’t covered by price appreciation, which will thin out flippers. Wholesalers will also be thinned out in the market even further in 2026. Technology + laws + the market are forcing wholesalers and flippers to adapt. There will be more opportunity than ever in real estate over the next 5 years, but it’ll take a big change in how you do business.”

Avrom Smith, owner of HAS Holdings LLC, also feels investors can no longer ignore regulations. “2026 will be no different from any other year in terms of deal opportunities. However, as a wholesaler, more states are beginning to regulate wholesaling, and it’ll be critical to have backup exit strategies in order to close deals.”

Investors need to step up their game in 2026

Trevor isn’t the only one who foresees the investor industry thinning out next year. Both Dean Rogers and Brandon Jarvela agree that things will get tougher and that investors who want to succeed need to adjust and overcome.

“Wholesalers that operate like real business owners and real businesses will dominate,” Jarvela commented. “The hobby people, the side gig type people, the people still slinging contracts in group chat site, I think they’re gonna have a really hard time. 2026 is the year where wholesalers are gonna get real lead sources through PPC, through agent relationships, data data-backed lists. They’re gonna have real dispositions systems or they’re gonna get wiped out by regulation. Regulation is getting heavier and heavier. You see lower spread and increasing seller expectation, so the bar is officially gonna be set higher for investors.”

Rogers agreed, noting that, “Investors have to level up their game. They have to lean into their systems even more, and they have to have better talent on their team. I think that everything has to bring the cream right to the top, so everybody’s gotta be on their A game to be successful. The biggest game changer is the talent piece. The people who are the best trained and are the best prepared are gonna be the ones who win. A lot of real estate investors will give up and the ones that don’t will rise to the occasion.”

But with challenges comes new opportunity. Stefon Henry of PNW Home Offer believes “there will be more off-market sellers, which in some markets means increased competition. Opportunity will be better in sub-markets.”

The key to keeping up, according to Avrom Smith, is to not ease up on marketing. “Marketing will continue to be paramount in terms of generating lead flow.”

In fact, a small survey of real estate investors (conducted by Carrot) found that the majority plan to increase their marketing budget and the number of marketing channels they use in 2026.

Trevor recommends doubling down on direct-to-seller marketing, especially online. “We’ll see more sellers seeking to sell online,” he believes.

How to be a successful investor in 2026

How exactly do you step up your game for 2026? A lot of it comes down to where you focus your energy and the relationships you build.

“Master two things: speed and sophistication,” Jarvela said for 2026. “Speed to lead, speed to offer, speed to close. Then sophistication in your deal structure, like whether you’re doing innovations or doing creative finance. We use something called a retail buyer program, but also dispo optimization, JV workflows, all that stuff that separates the actual operators from the amateurs. I think 2026 is gonna reward investors who run these types of processes and systems and can solve more problems.”

Several pros recommend focusing even more on the right deals next year.

Stefon Henry recommends underwriting more conservatively in 2026. “Double down on lead quality, not lead volume. Find sellers who need speed + certainty more than the highest price.”

Tony Stewart, owner of Property Peace in Ohio, agrees. “Be very strict in working with the real numbers and not speculating.

“Focus on increasing margins, not higher volume. Fewer but better deals is the name of the game,” Trevor added. “Off-market property opportunities will increase in ‘26. Focus on expired listings, sellers in distress that need help, etc.”

Trevor also recommends partnering more deeply with real estate agents. 

“Most agents aren’t shifting to ‘hybrid,’ but they’re starting to get squeezed hard by a slow retail market and many deals can’t be done on the retail market, so they’re looking for opportunity to create new listings. Savvy investors will see agents as their best friends in 2026.”

Another angle to explore in 2026 if you wholesale real estate is taking down more deals yourself. “Take downs are going to be a key strategy to survive,” Trevor predicts. While this may be counterintuitive since you’re no longer wholesaling at that point, it’s a more advanced technique with better margins for investors who can pull it off.

“The real opportunity is to actually become the buyer. Wholesalers currently lock up contracts, close a low percentage of them, and create a bad reputation. In 2026, become the actual buyer, taking the property down. If you can get 2-3x the profit taking the deal down, quick clean out, list aggressively at a low price to sell quick — do that versus wholesale. If you can’t get 2x taking it down, that’s when you wholesale instead. You should be in and out of a deal in 90 days, 120 days max,” he said. 

When done right, this can give you an advantage over wholesale competitors, Trevor explained.

“Educate the seller on what wholesale contracts actually say, ‘You see this says [this other investor] can back out of the deal all the way up to the day of closing, they aren’t putting up earnest money, etc, etc. With us, we are the buyer and we stand by it. We can and will perform.’”

AI in 2026

The investors who adopt AI as a team member, not just a shiny toy, are going to pull away from the pack fast. 2026 is the first year that a small team can operate with enterprise-level firepower. — Brandon Jarvela

AI was big in 2025, and it’s not going to slow down in 2026. Almost every investor I talked to mentioned AI and everyone who responded to our survey said they will either increase their usage of AI or start using it.

“AI will continue to rewrite the books. We haven’t even scratched the surface of its capabilities,” Avrom Smith predicts.

“AI is going to outperform any and all lead generation, so focus on building a relationship with AI. Let AI get to know you, know your business,” another investor commented.

AI has been a big topic of focus here at Carrot, with Trevor recently hosting two webinars on the subject:

• Website Tweaks Investors Make to Rank in AI Search to Get Motivated Sellers
• The 3 OFF-PAGE Tactics that Drive 80% of AI SEO Results

And hosting monthly interactive AI Search Visibility trainings. So it’s no wonder that he agrees AI is going to play a big role in real estate lead generation next year. He recommends focusing heavily on dialing in elements that help you rank in AI SEO and increase website conversion. 

Join the next AI Search Visibility Challenge >

Brandon Jarvela agrees that using AI wisely can have a major impact next year. 

“Not the cheesy ‘AI wrote my email’ type stuff,” he said. “I’m talking about the real-time lead scoring, predictive, seller motivation, automated follow-up that sounds human, and even dispo engines that match buyers to deals instantly. The investors who adopt AI as a team member, not just a shiny toy, are going to pull away from the pack fast. 2026 is the first year that a small team can operate with enterprise-level firepower.”

Prep for a Successful 2026

While what will happen over the next 12 months is anyone’s guess, these real estate pros have been in the game for a while and know how to recognize a trend. At a bar minimum, pay attention to changing local regulations and DO NOT ignore AI. Whether you’re optimizing your brand presence for AI SEO or using AI tools to get more done in less time, its impact is here to stay and ignoring it will just make you fall behind. 

What are your predictions for the real estate marketing and future of investing for 2026? Let us know in the comments!

Hey, I’m Jamie! I’ve been a professional digital marketer since 2010 and have spent a ton of time building lead scoring models over my career. So let me tell you all about lead scoring, how it’s useful, why it’s important, and how to set it up in a way that actually works for you. (Plus, I’ll share a template so you can build your own lead scoring matrix!)

Key Takeaways

• Lead scoring rates how well new leads fit your ideal customer profile based on their activity and details about the opportunity.  
• Lead scoring helps you quickly identify the best leads, telling you where to focus your time and resources for the best chance of closing lucrative deals.
• Real estate investors should use lead scoring to identify the most motivated sellers. You can do lead scoring manually with a spreadsheet or use an AI lead scoring tool.

Table of Contents

• Why Real Estate Pros Should Use Lead Scoring
• What Criteria to Use for Real Estate Lead Scoring
• Free Lead Scoring Template
• How to Set Up Lead Scoring
• Focus Where it Matters

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Why Real Estate Pros Should Use Lead Scoring

Professional marketers have used lead scoring for years, particularly at B2B companies. It’s one of the ways we decide who the sales team should spend time reaching out to. Put simply, lead scoring is a way to rate how well new leads fit your ideal customer profile based on their activities and details about the opportunity. 

Real estate investment teams with high lead volume should definitely use lead scoring to prioritize the most promising leads. Without lead scoring, you’re likely treating each new lead the same when they, quite frankly, are not. This leaves you vulnerable to wasted time and missed opportunities. Not only does lead scoring tell your team which leads to focus on first, it also helps with lead distribution. Give higher score (more promising) leads to your more experienced managers to ensure deals are done quickly before someone else locks it up. Lower score leads can be routed to newer managers or assigned to AI outreach tools that collect additional information for you while your team focuses elsewhere.

Even investors with more manageable lead volume can use lead scoring to decide which leads to follow up with first or more aggressively. If someone isn’t a good fit for your business or isn’t likely to turn into a deal, it’s not wise to spend the same amount of time, energy, and effort trying to close them. A low lead score tells you this quickly,

Lead scores change over time based on the lead’s engagement and the intel you collect. This tells you if a particular lead is turning into a stronger opportunity or is becoming less promising. Working with up-to-date lead scores ensures you stay focused and don’t waste your time. If you’re doing lead scoring manually, be sure to update the score each time you gather new information. If the lead stops responding, this should also negatively impact their score. If you use an AI lead scoring tool, the score automatically updates over time and as new information is added to the opportunity. 

Essentially, without lead scoring you’re flying in the dark or spending too much time manually reviewing each opportunity to identify the best ones. Focusing only on the best-fit leads helps you close more deals and stop wasting time.

What Criteria to Use for Real Estate Lead Scoring

Customize your lead scoring algorithm based on what you find most valuable. If you already have a defined Ideal Customer Profile, great! If not, take a second to jot down the attributes your perfect lead would have — the one that is a slam dunk deal that you’d love to see come through your pipeline.

Do you have an ideal:

• Seller/buyer motivation
• Closing timeline/urgency
• Ownership type
• Decision maker
• Property condition or location
• Occupancy status
• Lead source (e.g. PPC versus cold calling)

Don’t forget to factor in less concrete criteria that nevertheless impact a lead’s willingness or ability to make a deal, like how responsive they are to your communications and if you know (or suspect) you’re not the only investor they’re speaking to. While these are harder to measure, they can have a big impact on opportunity potential. 

These are just some examples of lead scoring criteria you can build into your model. You can make it as complex or as simple as you’d like based on your “buy box.” If you’re practicing manual lead scoring, I recommend keeping things simple so it’s easier to maintain as you gather new information.

Want help planning your lead scoring matrix? This free Real Estate Lead Scoring Template is an interactive worksheet you can use to build your customized manual or AI lead scoring models.

Over time, as you gain a better understanding of what makes a good or bad lead for your business, refine your scoring matrix. 

Note: Be cautious of lead scoring programs that decide your scoring criteria for you. They often claim they analyze your deals to identify the most important factors and commonalities. But without full control over your lead scoring algorithm, you can’t ensure leads with a high score are truly a good fit. If you decide to change your business focus, these “smart” AI scoring models need time to adjust, meaning your lead scores are blatantly incorrect until they catch up.

How to Set Up Lead Scoring

In the most manual way, you can use a spreadsheet for lead scoring. Add all your criteria in the first column and define how you’ll score each value (our lead scoring template has this pre-setup for you). You can manually enter the values each time or build dropdown options to keep scoring consistent. Then use the SUM function to add up the individual scores to get a total. 

If you’re lead scoring on a spreadsheet, I recommend using a single document to track scores for all your leads. This allows you to easily see which leads have the highest scores for outreach prioritization. You can even set conditional formatting to color-code leads based on their score (this feature is already built into the lead scoring template linked above).

Every time you get a new lead, give them their own column in the spreadsheet and set their initial scores. Whenever you gather more information, adjust the relevant scores. You may want to add an additional row to keep track of their most recent lead score before adjusting any values so you can see if the score goes up or down.

As you can see, this can be a tedious process to do manually and is vulnerable to scoring discrepancies because of user error or forgetfulness.

AI lead scoring takes a little bit of upfront work (and an occasional tweak as you refine your process), but once the setup is done scoring is handled for you. Any time new information is gathered, the score updates. You don’t need to do anything special and there’s no risk of forgetting.

AI lead scoring also allows you to add another layer of nuance to your sources — attribute weight. Does urgency, motivation, or property condition matter more to you than lead source or occupancy status? With AI lead scoring, you can tell the algorithm that some attributes are more important than others and should account for a larger percentage of the overall score. 

With manual lead scoring, if you have 10 attributes, each accounts for 1/10th of the total score (unless you want to get into some seriously complicated spreadsheet formulas). But with AI lead scoring, you can tell the algorithm that seller motivation should account for 20% of the overall score while lead source is only 6%. So a high seller motivation score will drive the total score up while a high lead source score won’t have much impact on the total. This allows you to index off what matters most to you.

There’s a worksheet for mapping out your AI lead scoring algorithm in the Lead Scoring Template, or you can build it directly in CarrotCRM’s AI Lead Scoring settings.

Focus Where it Matters

Lead scoring is a tried and true tool that marketing and sales teams have long trusted to identify the most promising leads. It’s not always perfect, but it can be a game changer, especially if you find yourself chasing bad leads. 

Sophisticated real estate investors understand this and have adopted lead scoring in their real estate CRMs. The good news is you don’t have to be a high budget investor to use lead scoring! You can do it manually, or you can turn on AI lead scoring with a CarrotCRM account starting at just $69/month. AI usage is pay-as-you-go, so there’s no need to make a high value commitment!

No matter your lead volume, lead scoring keeps you focused and helps flush out the trash early, giving you more time to work better deals. And in the numbers game of real estate investing, time matters.

If you’re a real estate investor, having a CRM designed for your needs is important. Generic CRMs don’t have the fields you need for details like property address, condition, asking pricing, etc., features like built-in maps and Zillow integrations, or follow-up tasks designed for real estate deal pipelines. 

So if not all CRMs are a good fit for real estate lead management, what should you look for … and what should you avoid? This post goes over six key things to avoid when shopping for a real estate CRM.

Key Takeaways

• Real estate investors should choose a CRM designed for real estate. Generic CRMs don’t have the fields or features needed for real estate lead and pipeline management.
• Choose a real estate CRM that has the features you need and will grow with your business, but don’t get distracted by too many unrelated features.
• When choosing a real estate CRM, make a list of your desired features, ask for recommendations in a way that gives you usable insights, and get live demos from the CRM providers you’re considering.

Table of Contents

• What is a real estate CRM?
• 1. It’s not designed for real estate
• 2. It’s difficult to set up or use
• 3. It doesn’t have AI features
• 4. It doesn’t support integrations
• 5. It has TOO many features
• 6. It can’t grow with you
• How to find the right real estate CRM

Lead generation, at its best

Attract, convert & close more motivated leads

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What is a real estate CRM?

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, and “a CRM” is software that helps you manage those relationships. CRMs provide a centralized place to store lead details, communication records, and activities, as well as set follow-up tasks and often include built-in options for communicating with leads via email, text message, or even calls. The goal is to help you actively keep track of leads and move them down the pipeline to a closed deal. Salesforce and HubSpot are some of the more well-known CRMs on the market, but they’re not designed for real estate professionals. 

A real estate CRM is CRM software built specifically for real estate professionals, particularly investors, agents, and property managers. Popular real estate investing CRMs include CarrotCRM, InvestorFuse, Resimpli, and Left Main REI. These solutions offer information fields and features unique to real estate lead management, such as built-in property data, nearby real estate comps, and follow-up steps like “due diligence” that you won’t find in a generic CRM.

When shopping for a CRM as a real estate investor, here are some key things to avoid to ensure you get a CRM that works well for your business.

1. It’s not designed for real estate

Handling a lead interested in selling their house to a wholesaler is very different than managing leads interested in buying enterprise software. Most CRMs have built-in fields for things like job title, company size, revenue, and buying roles — all fields that don’t make sense for real estate investors dealing with individuals.

While you can customize most CRMs with custom fields, why spend the extra time trying to make something work when it’s not a good fit? Especially since there are CRMs designed out of the box for real estate investors.

A real estate specific CRM has built-in data fields that make more sense for your use case. Fields like:

• Property details
• Estimated repairs needed
• Outstanding mortgage information
• Reason for selling
• Time to sell
• Occupancy details

Think of all the information you (or your lead or acquisition managers) would gather when assessing an opportunity. That information needs a dedicated place to live. Choose a CRM that is already built for that information instead of spending time setting it up manually.

Some real estate CRMs (like CarrotCRM) even pull much of this information into the opportunity for you via Zillow integrations and additional property data reports. This saves you time and gives you a better understanding of the property and potential deal value.

2. It’s difficult to set up or use

Speaking of not spending too much time setting up your CRM, that piece of advice also goes for dedicated real estate CRMs. Some are more complicated than others, and if it’s difficult to set up or use, you likely won’t end up using it.

Choose a CRM that has onboarding assistance, and be mindful of the timeline for launch. Some highly customizable CRMs like Left Main REI and HighLevel require a large amount of expertise and time to implement (which also drives up the price).

Don’t forget to look beyond implementation and consider what the day-to-day usage looks like. For instance, if the CRM relies on complicated workflows for lead nurturing, it could be overwhelming to set-up, use, and get value out of. Trust me, as a professional marketer for more than 15 years, I’ve spent plenty of time setting up automated workflows. It’s not a simple task, and it’s distributingly easy to mess up … meaning the workflow isn’t doing what you think it’s doing. Understanding automation can be full time job. Since marketing isn’t your full time job, look for a CRM with easy-to-use automations.

Consider choosing an action-based CRM that drives activities to make sure deals keep moving. If your CRM is little more than an online to-do list, it’s not any more effective than keeping track of your leads and tasks manually. An action-based CRM helps you set the right follow-up tasks and makes sure you know what to do next, keeping you on track.

For example, CarrotCRM’s action-based system does not allow you to complete an existing task without setting up the next follow-up step. This ensures you never forget what needs to be done or when the deadline is. Every CRM says it helps “keep leads from slipping through the cracks,” but if you forget to set the next follow-up step (or think you’ll do it later), that’s exactly what happens. CarrotCRM prevents that by making sure every lead always has a next step, owner, and due date. Then, these tasks get pulled into your My Dashboard view, ensuring nothing is forgotten

3. It doesn’t have AI features

Smart real estate investors use new AI tools to do more work in less time. Those who aren’t will to be increasingly left behind. With that in mind, don’t invest in a CRM that doesn’t have built-in AI.

Depending on your need and the CRM, AI can do everything from having information gathering conversations with leads, to making sure you’re aware if circumstances change and a lead becomes more or less likely to close, to nurturing cold leads. These tools save investors countless hours and help them focus their time and efforts on the most promising leads. Investors who continue to do everything manually will see themselves closing fewer deals in the months and years to come.

Many CRMs are adding new AI features fairly often, so ask about features on the company’s roadmap when evaluating your options. If they’re not adding AI features at all, they’re likely to become outdated in the near future. (Be sure you understand the pricing model for any AI features. Some may be included in the base price, but many CRMs treat AI as an add-on with its own price.)

If the CRM doesn’t have a specific AI capability you’re interested in, make sure it supports integrations that allow you to add that feature. Which brings us to our next thing to avoid …

4. It doesn’t support integrations

CRMs can be very feature-rich (sometimes too feature-rich, but more on that in a second), but if it’s a completely closed system that doesn’t allow integrations, you’ll find yourself trapped. Whether you’re integrating a lead source or connecting another tool, your CRM needs to be the hub for your lead management. It can’t be a hub if you can’t connect the data and tools that you need and use.

Allowing integrations lets you use best-in-class solutions that fit your specific needs and preferences. You may want to integrate a tool that the CRM doesn’t have built in or use an alternative that you like better than the included capability. Using your preferred phone system is a great example. You should be allowed to use the tools and software you want, not what the CRM dictates.

This is particularly helpful with AI tools. There’s not a single real estate CRM that offers every common AI capability. AI is too new, and companies are still building out their AI feature suites,  focusing first on the capabilities they think are most valuable to their users. Even as CRMs add new AI features, there are some AI tools that dedicated companies will likely be better at. AI voice solutions are the perfect example. It takes a lot to make an artificial voice agent sound real and engaging. Companies that focus only on AI voice are likely to perfect it before a CRM company creating its own in-house version.

That’s another thing to avoid — CRMs that do too much.

5. It has TOO many features

This may sound silly, but hear me out — more features are not always better. All-in-one CRMs promise to let you handle marketing, lead generation, lead follow-up, and deal management all in one platform. That sounds enticing until you start looking more closely.

All-in-one solutions have many potential pitfalls, but the main things to ask yourself are:

• Am I paying for features I don’t want or use?
• It does a lot of things, but does it do them all well?

Best-in-Class versus All-in-Ones

Define what you want to accomplish with a CRM and your overall goals, then look into the features that will help you get there. If your goal is to close more deals, do you really need more leads (i.e. outbound marketing tools) or do you need to better handle the leads you have (i.e. a CRM that hyper focuses on working your lead database)? All the bells and whistles are attractive, but they can also distract you from the main task at hand or leave you with substandard features because a company is stretched too thin.

6. It can’t grow with you

While you don’t want a CRM that’s so feature-rich that it’s distracting, you do want to choose a CRM that has the right features to scale with your business. 

Focus on lead management related features like campaign tracking, employee dashboards, and round robin lead distribution. These are in line with the main purpose of a CRM and help you effectively assign, track, and manage leads as your lead sources (marketing campaigns) and acquisition management team grow.

Don’t forget to look at the CRM’s pricing model. While it may be affordable now, it might not always be that way. Does it grow in a sensible way, or does the price make crazy jumps if you need to add more users, contact records, or AI usage? Or worse, is the pricing behind a “Contact Sales” gate, meaning you have no idea what will happen to the cost as you grow?

One of the worst things is having to switch your CRM. Moving to a new system takes a lot of time, effort, and learning, interrupting more important work. It’s better to find a CRM that is affordable and meets your needs when you’re just starting out, but that can grow with you as your business scales.

How to find the right real estate CRM

We’ve talked a lot about what to avoid when choosing a real estate investing CRM, but I don’t want this post to be disheartening! There are amazing CRMs for real estate investors available. Here are some tips on how to find the best one for you.

Make a list of the features you need and rank each one by importance

Just like with any important purchase, make a list of your must-have and nice-to-have features, then rank those in order of importance. Define your goals and work backwards to ensure you’re not distracted.

This gives you a rubric to evaluate potential CRM providers. There may not be a perfect fit, but focusing on your must-have list will ensure your new CRM meets your main requirements.

Download our Software Evaluation Matrix

Be smart about how you ask for recommendations

It’s natural to ask for recommendations from people you trust, especially with so many coaches in the real estate investing industry. Everyone has an opinion. The trick is to understand what you’re looking for and how well their recommendation aligns with your needs.

When asking about real estate CRMs, here are a few key questions to get a real understanding of its fit and functionality:

• What were you looking for in a CRM? (Make sure it aligns with what you want to accomplish. It may be a great CRM from the person you’re talking to, but not the right fit for you.)
• What features do you use all the time? What are your favorites?
• Is there something you thought you’d like, but actually never use?
• What don’t you like about it?
• Is there anything you feel it’s missing?
• What made you choose this CRM? Did you consider any others?

Pro tip: Avoid yes or no questions. These don’t give you the level of insight you need to make your own decision. 

Get a live demo

Even the most user-friendly CRMs can seem overwhelming at the start. Before committing, book a live demo to see it in action and ask questions. 

Watching video reviews is a good start, but they aren’t interactive. Speaking to a professional who knows the software gives you a better understanding of how you’ll use it and the chance to ask clarifying questions or get a deeper demonstration of certain features.

Armed with this list of things to avoid and a few steps to finding the right solution for you, you’ll have the perfect real estate CRM in no time!

We’re officially in the last quarter of 2025 (how did that happen?). And while Q3 included a good chunk of the summer, we didn’t spend the whole time on vacation! Instead, we were busy releasing new features and improving existing ones. Here’s a recap of some of the highlights from Q3 2025.

Key Takeaways

• New Carrot website subscriptions now include a mix of website, SEO, and content tools, plus integrations, with every price point.
• Carrot offers CarrotCRM AI features and built-in Call Tracking.
• Several small features and improvements were released to improve page load speed and overall performance for all Carrot websites.

Table of Contents

1. New Subscriptions
2. New Features
• CarrotCRM AI
• Call Tracking 
3. Performance Improvements
• LLMs.txt for AI Discoverability
• Google Maps Load Time
• Hide or Show Website Elements Based on Screen Size
• Speed Improvement for Google Analytics Users
4. What’s Coming from Carrot in Q4 2025?
• More Design Customization
• Property Analysis & Offer Recommendation AI

Lead generation, at its best

Attract, convert & close more motivated leads

Try Carrot Today

New Subscriptions

If you’ve looked at the Carrot pricing page lately, you might have noticed some changes. We’ve simplified our subscriptions so you get more baked-in features with fewer add-ons. 

(If you’re a current Carrot member, don’t worry, your subscription is staying exactly the same. But if you want to change to one of the new plans, connect with our Support team using the live chat.)

Our new subscription model follows a traditional “good, better, best” approach, giving you more features as you move up. But we made some critical changes to ensure that you’re successful no matter which Carrot subscription you choose!

A few notable changes include:

• Every Carrot subscription now comes with a mix of website, SEO, and content tools — no add-ons required. Key features like on-page SEO recommendations and the unique content scoring tool are included with the Starter subscription, ensuring you’re set up for SEO success from day one.
• Integrations are now included! This change was the direct result of feedback from existing members. Carrot isn’t an all-in-one solution and we pride ourselves on letting you integrate your favorite tools. So we’re living by our ethos and including integrations with your subscriptions so you can build your ideal online lead generation hub.
• Every Carrot subscription comes with Call Tracking!

New Features

We’re always looking for ways to improve Carrot, and last quarter saw a couple of very exciting feature releases!

CarrotCRM AI

The first set of CarrotCRM AI features technically came out in late June. But in case you missed the announcement in the haze of summer, it’s worth repeating here.

CarrotCRM — a best-in-class CRM for real estate investors, formerly known as InvestorFuse 3.0 — offers a range of AI tools that highlight the most motivated leads, instantly surface critical information, and save investors hours of manual work.

Want to see for yourself? All CarrotCRM users can try AI Lead Scoring and AI Summaries for free on five opportunities!

Call Tracking 

Understanding where your leads come from and which source generates the most deals is critical to smart marketing and budgeting. Why spend a lot of money and time on a lead source that never converts?

Dedicated landing pages and forms are good for tracking online leads, but what if a lead calls you, either because they got your phone number from a piece of offline marketing (like direct mail) or because they found your phone number on your website but simply prefer to call than fill out a form? You can ask where they heard about you, but that information isn’t always reliable. 

With call tracking, you know without a doubt what piece of marketing drove that call. And now, Carrot members can access call tracking right within their website platform! With just a few clicks, you can get dedicated phone numbers for each of your marketing campaigns, and an insightful dashboard to pinpoint which campaigns are most successful.

Performance Improvements

Carrot’s top priority is making sure you have the best performance possible. But what exactly does performance mean? It means that Carrot websites are intentionally designed to load fast, be secure, show up when and where people are searching, and convert website visitors into leads. Here are some recent updates that ensure top-notch website performance.

LLMs.txt for AI Discoverability

We all know that AI search tools are becoming more popular. And built-in AI search results in Google are impacting the SEO landscape. To help Carrot members adjust to these shifts, we’ve now implemented LLMs.txt files on all Carrot websites.

These files follow best practices for LLMs (large language models, the power behind AI tools) and include information such as site info, pages, and posts in a format that is easy for AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini (Google’s AI search feature) to understand. The goal is to give the content on your website a better chance of showing up in AI answers when someone asks a related question.

While the professional jury is still on on whether LLMs.txt files directly impact AI results, the way language models ingest information is changing everyday. Having an LLMs.txt file in place on your website ensures it’s formatted in a way that’s easily readable for AI.

Google Maps Load Time

Embedding a Google map is a popular feature on real estate websites, but it can slow down your site load speed… which is bad for conversions. If your page takes too long to load, visitors are likely to hit the back button and look at a different site. The more visitors who bounce from your site, the more Google thinks there’s an issue, meaning you’ll start dropping in search result rankings. Overall, slow page speed is bad for business. We implemented a change in September to address this issue.

We built a new drag-and-drop website element that replaces embedded Google Maps with a look alike option that doesn’t slow down page load speeds. In the past, when you embedded a Google map onto a webpage, it was live and interactive right away. This requires javascript to load with the page, slowing down overall page speed. The new Google Maps block pattern shows a preview of the map using your specific address. The map looks the same to a visitor, but doesn’t become interactive until the visitor engages with it.

This one change improved site speed from 72 (a yellow warning score) to 90 (green)!

Hide or Show Website Elements Based on Screen Size

According to our data, 50% of visitors come to Carrot sites from desktops and 50% use mobile devices. That means your site needs to look good and perform well on all types of screen sizes. But you’re not a web designer, so how do you make sure that happens? Stop stressing over your design and let our built-in features handle it for you.

One of our Q3 updates is the ability to show or hide certain parts of your website based on the user’s screensize. For instance, you can have an eye-catching arrow pointing to a form on the desktop view, but hide that element on mobile to make sure the form isn’t pushed too far down the page. This feature makes it fast and easy to ensure your site looks great and performs well on both desktop and mobile! 

Speed Improvement for Google Analytics Users

Carrot websites have a certain amount of metrics built in, but the power of data and insights really shines when you have Google Analytics (GA) connected to your site. This allows us to pull even more data into your in-Carrot reporting dashboards. (Trust me, as a professional marketer, you 100% should have Google Analytics connected to your site!)

But, just like embedding Google Maps, connecting GA is notorious for potentially slowing down your page load speed. To address this and improve your page speed, we now delay Google Analytics script loading by two seconds. This gives your pages a head start before analytics loads, allowing visitors to see critical information quickly. 

On average, sites see a 5–10 point improvement on PageSpeed Insights scores from this optimization. This means stronger Core Web Vitals and better signals to Google — all of which helps your SEO and general visitor experience.

Want Even More Performance Improvements?

Want to dive even deeper into improving your website’s performance? Join Carrot’s Official Facebook Community – Evergreen Marketing for Real Estate, where we share results from Carrot Labs, our pet project where we continuously test new ways to improve performance. 

What’s Coming from Carrot in Q4 2025?

We have even more great updates coming in the next few weeks and months!

More Design Customization

Carrot website templates are designed very specifically for optimal lead conversion. We’ve literally spent years testing into our templates (there’s a reason we recommend the pages we do and have the navigation in a certain order … it’s because it improves conversion!).

But you’ve been asking for ways to make your site look more unique and stand out from other Carrot-hosted sites. And we heard you.

In May, we released new drag and drop block patterns — pre-built sections that you can use to add content, images, FAQs, testimonials, and more to your site in just seconds. Pick your favorites, put them wherever you want on the page, set your custom colors, and choose from hundreds of pre-loaded icons. Using these block patterns is a great way to customize the look of your site while maintaining its performance and hitting all your credibility factors.

In Q4, we’re giving you even more template options, design elements, and customization options to make your site really stand out while maintaining its performance. Stay tuned, I expect the new templates to be released in early Q4! 

Property Analysis & Offer Recommendation AI

We aren’t done with CarrotCRM AI features! The next iteration will take Carrot’s Market Scout, property reports, and AI Summaries to the next level with an AI feature that analyzes an opportunity and suggests a good offer price based on your business parameters.

Make sure you start the video at 54:30!

See you in Q4!

That’s just a little preview of what we’re working on to close out the year. If you want to stay in the know and get some additional resources (like AI prompts to accelerate your business), make sure you’re part of Carrot’s Evergreen Marketing for Real Estate Facebook Group!