Create and customize your site yourself, or leverage our experts to personalize your site quickly and with minimal effort. We offer several website setup services.
Quickstart
$275
one-time setup, per site
Feeling a big overwhelmed? We’ll get you started with some site personalization.
Choose this option during checkout.
Quickstart Plus
$1,200
one-time setup, per site
Zero time to set up your website? Most members choose this option for a quick win and best path to success.
Choose this option during checkout.
Concierge Setup
Contact Sales
one-time setup, per site
The ultimate setup service! Let Carrot’s website experts bring your brand online with a customized site.
➕ Add additional sites at any time for just $29/mo
Third-Party Integrations
SEO-Optimized Starter Copy
Visual Editor
Fast and Secure Hosting
Domain Overview Tool
CarrotCRM
CarrotCRM Free is included with all Carrot web subscriptions and gives you access to 1 user, 3 automated outreach sequences, lead emailing & texting capabilities, 5 property reports/mo, email notification about new leads, & basic reporting.
➕ Upgrade your CRM after signup for additional users and features!
I was nervous, but to my surprise, my new Carrot site started to immediately generate motivated seller leads… The migration of my already high SEO ranking site to Carrot was a seamless process. Carrot was sensitive to my existing high ranking long-tale URLs and did a great job making sure the migration kept my already ranking content. I closed my 1st Carrot deal within 45 days of launching the new site.
Tyler Ford
WeBuyHomesInTucson.com
Right now, with Carrot, it’s safe to say we’re averaging about 4 deals a month and our average deal is about $25,000 bucks. I never got anything from my old custom websites… You go where people are getting results. I saw people in competitive markets using Carrot, so I knew it was the platform I needed. I couldn’t survive without the SEO package.
Mike Wall
RE Investor | Ohio
If I could go back, I’d tell myself to take this leap sooner. Carrot didn’t just change my business; it changed my life. I’m not stuck grinding through endless cold calls anymore. Now, I’m building something real, with clients who are grateful for my help. It’s exactly the kind of business I wanted. Now, when people reach out to me, they’re truly ready to sell.
Keith Sant
RE Investor | Washington/Texas
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens after I join?
First, we’ll ask you about your business so we can personalize your experience.
Then, you will create, personalize, and launch your website.
Next, pick your traffic plan and use our guides and training to grow your online marketing.
You can join the Carrot Community for support, updates, tips… and to celebrate your wins as you generate traffic and leads!
Does Carrot “do my SEO” for me?
Carrot sites are optimized for SEO—meaning known best practices and tech is already in place!
When you create your site, we will ask you some questions and automate the initial on-page setup. Often times this jumpstart helps our customers sites get ranked for popular searches in their local area within 2 weeks… but your ongoing need for optimization and SEO work depends a lot on your location and competition.
Track your ranking progress in Carrot’s SEO tools, learn from our SEO guides—and should you want to invest in more help, we can make introductions to vendors in our marketplace
What if I need more than one website?
Add more sites at any time for just $29/month!
Carrot members add additional sites for other lead types, industries, or locations every day.
Looking for something more specific? Contact our team and consider a service to help you set up your unique site. We’ve seen members grow from Real Estate Investing into other industries and create personalized Carrot sites to their needs.
What makes Carrot better than other website builders?
Performance and ease of use.
We focus on data driven websites… designed to help you rank easily, while converting more traffic into leads. This means we are constantly testing our websites to make sure they perform. For more information check out our Carrot Methodology.
You can have your first website live and ready for use today!
Does Carrot website pricing include hosting?
Yes, all plans come with secure and fast managed hosting. That means you don’t have to worry about updates, plugins, backups, firewalls and all that tech stuff. We’ve got it!
Is there a set-up fee?
Most new Carrot members do their own setup through our automated site creation system. Our team is here to support you if you run into any issues or have questions.
If you prefer for us to do it for you, you can leverage our team of experts to help you setup and design. See our optional setup services above.
Can I move my current website to Carrot?
You can move your existing domain to a new Carrot site. And you will want to configure that new site with your existing branding and credibility (like logo, testimonials, projects, etc).
We do not typically recommend trying to re-create an existing website on Carrot unless you are an expert and know your previous work will outperform our optimized systems.
If you have a site that already ranks well for your important keywords, please contact our team and we can discuss a Concierge Migration to help ensure a successful transition without losing your current results.
What happens if I want to cancel?
We would be bummed to see you go. But simply go into your account and request a cancellation… that’s it. If you are within 30 days we will honor our 30-day money back guarantee.
You are free to take and reuse any content you created for your site, but any content from Carrot’s Content Library or page templates cannot be reused elsewhere.
Does Carrot provide phone support?
Yes! Phone support is a feature for our premium support add-on.
If you need additional ongoing support, you can add or remove this at any time from within your account.
Simply schedule a call with our team through the support options in your account once you add this feature.
I started leveraging Carrot websites and not only was I able to claim the number one ranking but I get leads consistently. Carrot has become one of the biggest assets of my business.
MIKE BORGER
Oahu Home Buyers
Carrot has become the foundation to my business. If you want to rank and you want to convert leads from motivated sellers then you need Carrot because you won’t even compete without them.
Create and customize your site yourself, or leverage our experts to personalize your site quickly and with minimal effort. We offer several website setup services.
Quickstart
$275
one-time setup, per site
Feeling a big overwhelmed? We’ll get you started with some site personalization.
Choose this option during checkout.
Quickstart Plus
$1,200
one-time setup, per site
Zero time to set up your website? Most members choose this option for a quick win and best path to success.
Choose this option during checkout.
Concierge SetUp
Contact Sales
one-time setup, per site
The ultimate setup service! Let Carrot’s website experts bring your brand online with a customized site.
➕ Add additional sites at any time for just $29/mo
Third-Party Integrations
SEO-Optimized Starter Copy
Visual Editor
Fast and Secure Hosting
Domain Overview Tool
CarrotCRM
CarrotCRM Free is included with all Carrot web subscriptions and gives you access to 1 user, 3 automated outreach sequences, lead emailing & texting capabilities, 5 property reports/mo, email notification about new leads, & basic reporting.
➕ Upgrade your CRM after signup for additional users and features!
I was nervous, but to my surprise, my new Carrot site started to immediately generate motivated seller leads… The migration of my already high SEO ranking site to Carrot was a seamless process. Carrot was sensitive to my existing high ranking long-tale URLs and did a great job making sure the migration kept my already ranking content. I closed my 1st Carrot deal within 45 days of launching the new site.
Tyler Ford
WeBuyHomesInTucson.com
Right now, with Carrot, it’s safe to say we’re averaging about 4 deals a month and our average deal is about $25,000 bucks. I never got anything from my old custom websites… You go where people are getting results. I saw people in competitive markets using Carrot, so I knew it was the platform I needed. I couldn’t survive without the SEO package.
Mike Wall
RE Investor | Ohio
If I could go back, I’d tell myself to take this leap sooner. Carrot didn’t just change my business; it changed my life. I’m not stuck grinding through endless cold calls anymore. Now, I’m building something real, with clients who are grateful for my help. It’s exactly the kind of business I wanted. Now, when people reach out to me, they’re truly ready to sell.
Keith Sant
RE Investor | Washington/Texas
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens after I join?
First, we’ll ask you about your business so we can personalize your experience.
Then, you will create, personalize, and launch your website.
Next, pick your traffic plan and use our guides and training to grow your online marketing.
You can join the Carrot Community for support, updates, tips… and to celebrate your wins as you generate traffic and leads!
Does Carrot “do my SEO” for me?
Carrot sites are optimized for SEO—meaning known best practices and tech is already in place!
When you create your site, we will ask you some questions and automate the initial on-page setup. Often times this jumpstart helps our customers sites get ranked for popular searches in their local area within 2 weeks… but your ongoing need for optimization and SEO work depends a lot on your location and competition.
Track your ranking progress in Carrot’s SEO tools, learn from our SEO guides—and should you want to invest in more help, we can make introductions to vendors in our marketplace
What if I need more than one website?
Add more sites at any time for just $29/month!
Carrot members add additional sites for other lead types, industries, or locations every day.
Looking for something more specific? Contact our team and consider a service to help you set up your unique site. We’ve seen members grow from Real Estate Investing into other industries and create personalized Carrot sites to their needs.
What makes Carrot better than other website builders?
Performance and ease of use.
We focus on data driven websites… designed to help you rank easily, while converting more traffic into leads. This means we are constantly testing our websites to make sure they perform. For more information check out our Carrot Methodology.
You can have your first website live and ready for use today!
Does Carrot website pricing include hosting?
Yes, all plans come with secure and fast managed hosting. That means you don’t have to worry about updates, plugins, backups, firewalls and all that tech stuff. We’ve got it!
Is there a set-up fee?
Most new Carrot members do their own setup through our automated site creation system. Our team is here to support you if you run into any issues or have questions.
If you prefer for us to do it for you, you can leverage our team of experts to help you setup and design. See our optional setup services above.
Can I move my current website to Carrot?
You can move your existing domain to a new Carrot site. And you will want to configure that new site with your existing branding and credibility (like logo, testimonials, projects, etc).
We do not typically recommend trying to re-create an existing website on Carrot unless you are an expert and know your previous work will outperform our optimized systems.
If you have a site that already ranks well for your important keywords, please contact our team and we can discuss a Concierge Migration to help ensure a successful transition without losing your current results.
What happens if I want to cancel?
We would be bummed to see you go. But simply go into your account and request a cancellation… that’s it. If you are within 30 days we will honor our 30-day money back guarantee.
You are free to take and reuse any content you created for your site, but any content from Carrot’s Content Library or page templates cannot be reused elsewhere.
Does Carrot provide phone support?
Yes! Phone support is a feature for our premium support add-on.
If you need additional ongoing support, you can add or remove this at any time from within your account.
Simply schedule a call with our team through the support options in your account once you add this feature.
I started leveraging Carrot websites and not only was I able to claim the number one ranking but I get leads consistently. Carrot has become one of the biggest assets of my business.
MIKE BORGER
Oahu Home Buyers
Carrot has become the foundation to my business. If you want to rank and you want to convert leads from motivated sellers then you need Carrot because you won’t even compete without them.
The highest-performing investor websites and CRM. Launch faster. Convert more. Powered by AI.
Most investors leave thousands in profits on the table from an underperforming website and CRM. Carrot fixes that — with 10+ years of conversion data, AI, and local search expertise already built in.
Your unique brand. Carrot’s performance. No tradeoffs.
For a long time, investors had a choice to make.
You could build a custom site that looked exactly the way you wanted — and hope it performed.
Or you could use Carrot, and know it would rank and convert — but feel like every other Carrot site out there.
That tradeoff is over.
New Carrot gives you deep design flexibility to customize your site built on top of our proven performance engine that holds more top 3 Google rankings, AI mentions, higher page speeds, and market-leading website conversions.
Be proud of your unique site. And watch it perform.
Carrot’s new website builder is currently in Beta. To see the new experience, connect with our sales team.
Best-in-class performance (with the results to prove it)
We could be an all-in-one. But we’ve intentionally chosen not to be. Why? All-in-ones cost you performance, results, and money.
When you need to squeeze out the extra performance edge, you go with a specialist. We help give you the edge that puts more money in your pocket.
🎯 Get found. Get leads. Close deals.
We’re not trying to be everything to all. There’s a place for that, just not for those who demand the best performance. Carrot does two things better than anyone:
Websites that dominate local search and convert leads like mad.
A CRM that keeps you focused on what matters, closing more deals with less time in your CRM.
Your marketing has leaky buckets. Most real estate investors never find them.
There are “Phantom Expenses” in every business. Even yours. Money that should be in your bank account, but went to your competitors instead. Dozens of “under-optimizations” across your marketing & CRM quietly leaking out leads, deals, and profits.
People switch to CarrotWeb every day from AI site builders, custom WordPress sites, ‘free’ sites included in the ‘all-in-one’ tool, and the cheap site builders… and get an instant boost in performance (and profits).
People are switching to CarrotCRM from the cluttered/bulky ‘all-in-one’ that ends up being ‘mediocre-at-all’, unnecessarily difficult & a spendy trap of Salesforce build-outs… and improving their lead-to-closed deal rate without having to add extra head count.
Hundreds of customer testimonialsshow how things perform better (with less hassle) on Carrot. That’s money in your bank and time back on your calendar.
Carrot has been around since 2013. We’ve pioneered high-performance “best-in-class” websites in real estate, serving tens of thousands of real estate and home services pros (and the agencies that help them).
And with our InvestorFuse acquisition, we now have the best-in-class CRM for serious inbound real estate marketers, too. It’s now called CarrotCRM. Every CarrotWeb plan includes the free version of CarrotCRM so you can grow with confidence.
In 2026, we’re launching NEW Carrot. Amazing website design flexibility + AI and data-driven performance to help you optimize and stand out. Keep an eye out for our exciting releases.
Tried us in the past and thought “all Carrot sites look alike?” Those days are over. Dive into this site, book a demo, and try Carrot risk-free. We’d be pumped and honored to serve you.
Trevor Mauch, Co-Founder & CEO
Carrot is Built for Inbound Local Search Marketers who Care Most About Performance, Security, Speed, and Confidence.
If you’re tired of that all-in-one that was attractive when you started, but is now costing you leads and deals from under-performing “ok” features… Carrot is for you. If you want to have ownership of the things that matter in your website, but don’t want the hassle (and expense) of everything else… Carrot is for you. If you want to own your brand online, stand out, and build trust online. Carrot is for you.
Use just CarrotWeb to get more leads. Use just CarrotCRM to close more leads to deals. Use them both together for the magic.
📞 Action-based CRM built for inbound closers and their growing teams
Integrate and extend
🔗 Scale without limits. Integrate with the other best-of-class tools you already use
Demo CarrotWeb
Want to see what makes a Carrot website special and what you can expect from the website building experience and SEO tools?
Demo CarrotCRM
Check out CarrotCRM — built specifically for real estate investors with the features and tools that actually move opportunities forward.
AI-powered inbound marketing and sales tools that keep humans dialed-in
✍️ AI Content Writer
Generate custom website copy in one click. Matches your voice, your market, your brand. What used to take hours now takes minutes, and it’s built on 10+ years of conversion data.
📋 AI Opportunity Summaries
Get caught up on any lead in 30 seconds. Property details, seller intent, conversation history — all summarized so you’re ready for every callback.
📋 AI Autonomous Lead Manager
Launch custom, trained AI lead follow-up agents who can text and email leads to qualify them and gather key information.
📞 AI Call Analysis
Every call is transcribed and scored for lead motivation. Know which conversations are worth reviewing, and which reps need coaching.
🧠 AI Lead Scoring
Every lead gets scored automatically based on motivation signals. Your team knows who’s hot before they pick up the phone.
… and more AI tools coming!
Thousands of top real estate investors, agents, contractors, and marketing agencies use Carrot to grow with less hassle.
“Carrot sites are great because you can literally have a full-fledged website up and running within 10 minutes. Like no joke… The best thing about Carrot websites is they take the headache out of the equation. You don’t have to figure out web hosting, installing WordPress, building forms, picking a theme, writing initial content, initial designs, and so much more. It just works.”
Jason Moss
Digital Marketing Agency for Real Estate Investors
Products: CarrotWeb
“We had our biggest month ever, Google PPC to a Carrot site. We did $140k in assignment fees at a 5:1 ROI. I have the control I need with my website, without the issues I had with my old custom site. For the first time in a long time, business, family, and faith feel all aligned.”
“We received the most leads in a month ever this month. We also had our biggest month of sales this month. As you can see, most come from my Carrot website/SEO. My old site never produced like this. What I have found is consistent blogging has helped my rankings. I do 8 a month, mainly because I have 3 topics I hit every month (kitchens, bathrooms, roofs).”
Our Strategy: Carrot is your high-performing hub of trust
Your website is the heart(or “hub”) of your marketing.
Marketing channels come and go. Algorithms shift. But one thing stays constant: your website is where sellers/buyers decide to call you… or your competitor.
Direct mail, PPC, TV, radio… all offline marketing drives online demand. Before they pick up the phone, they Google (or ChatGPT) you. And what they find either builds trust or kills the deal.
Our websites are built specifically for real estate investors and local service businesses that serve property owners. That’s our only focus. Every page, every element, one goal: convert motivated sellers, buyers, tenants, and borrowers into leads.
“Especially in the age of AI SEO,your website is your hub of trust.“
“Direct mail is our core strategy, Carrot is our conversion mechanism. People find us online, and convert into leads at a really high rate with Carrot. Also, our SEO rankings have dramatically increased since we moved to Carrot. Carrot is beating our expensive custom site.”
Ryan Dossey, CEO / SoldFast(National Brand)
Path to Carrot: Custom WordPress to All-in-one “free” site to Carrot
“I’ve already seen the lead flow increase noticeably since launching on Carrot, this is a great sign!”
Jason Pritchard, CEO Pinnacle Home Buyers / Fresno, CA
Path to Carrot: Low-performing custom WordPress site to a blazing fast Carrot site Products: CarrotWeb, Concierge Setup Service
Launch, Customize, Convert: More than just a “pretty” site
Make every visit count
Your brand, your way. Carrot sites are built to match your business — no more cookie-cutter templates. Fresh designs, drag-and-drop editing, and AI content that sounds like you. Stand out in your market and make sellers feel like they found the right investor: You.
Speed and trust that converts. Every second your site takes to load costs you leads. Carrot sites score 60% faster than custom WordPress… so visitors stay, trust builds, and more of them pick up the phone.
Know what’s working. Built-in lead source tracking shows you exactly which pages and campaigns drive your best deals. Integrate with your CRM or use ours. Either way, you’ll know where your money’s going… and where it’s coming from.
We handle the tech. No plugin updates. No security patches. No developer on speed dial. We keep your site fast, secure, and optimized… so you can focus on closing deals, not fixing code, fiddling with the AI builder, or chasing developers.
I have 3 Carrot sites that have [each] generated over $1M in assignment fees and one of those over $2M. I do TV advertising and SEO and my Carrot site is the center of it that makes it all work. I’d considered a custom WordPress website, but the performance, ease, and ROI from Carrot can’t be matched even on a custom build. Why would I hassle with going custom?”
Jeremy Resmer
CEO, Value Land Buyers & Middle Tennessee Home Buyers
Nashville, TN Products: CarrotWeb
Get Noticed: Ranking in local SEO and AI Search
Dominate local search. Stay visible as AI search evolves.
Here’s what our data actually shows: organic traffic to Carrot sites hasn’t dropped since AI search came on the scene. Google searches have increased since AI Overviews launched. And local service businesses… like real estate investors, agents, contractors, and home services show more stable click-through rates than most other industries.
We’re not ignoring the shift. We’re building for it.
“I’ve been a loyal Carrot customer for almost 10 years now! One of my sites that performs well used to average 5-10 leads weekly at best. Which is good. But I’ve noticed leads slowly increasing the last 30 days. The past 7 days I’ve had 45 leads. Of those 26 were from ChatGPT… Highly recommend Carrot sites and their AI SEO training!”
Jeff Filali, CEO of Oklahoma Cash Home Buyer, LLC Products: CarrotWeb, AI SEO Challenge
A suite of local SEO tools to help you get better results…
🔍 Local Search Dominance
30%+ of the top Google rankings for motivated sellers are Carrot sites. Schema markup, site speed, content structure, location pages, all optimized before you hit publish.
🤖 AI Search Optimization
We’re dialing in schema, FAQ structure, guiding you how to improve EEAT signals, and hyperlocal authority… the factors that get you mentioned in ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and whatever comes next.
ChatGPT · Gemini
📍 Multi-Market Expansion
Scale into new cities without starting from scratch. Our SEO architecture is built for investors who want to dominate more than one market with location pages. Or launch multiple Carrot sites if you want!
Once your leaky bucket under-performing website problem is fixed, it’s about tracking and lead management
Every part of your local search marketing machine should work together to increase your return on investment as much as possible. From tracking, analytics, follow-up, and lead management… Carrot has the tools and support to help you close the gaps.
Track Your Marketing: Know what’s working (and what’s not)
Clearer decisions with simple data and tracking.
Website stats. Use built-in website stats for the most important site visitor info, or easily plug in your Google Analytics code to go deep.
Lead source tracking. Never wonder where your leads are coming from. Every lead has a “lead source” attached to it, telling you exactly where each lead came from.
Google Search Console integration. In a few clicks, we’ll pull in your Google Search Console data to show you what keywords bring people to your site and more.
Campaign tracking UTM links. Doing paid ads or social media? Use our Campaign Links for your social profile CTAs, ad tests, and social posts to know if they’re turning into clicks and leads.
Phone call tracking (AI-powered). Every Carrot account gets a free local phone tracking # to use, and you can add as many as you’d like for just $3/mo. Track calls, texts, and try our AI-powered call analyzer to quickly know how every call went.
“I’ve already seen the lead flow increase noticeably since launching on Carrot, this is a great sign!”
Jason Pritchard, CEO Pinnacle Home Buyers / Fresno, CA
Path to Carrot: Low-performing custom WordPress site to a blazing fast Carrot site
CRM + Lead Management: For inbound marketers
Turn Leads into Closed Deals, Without the Chaos
Your leads deserve better than a spreadsheet and sticky notes. And you deserve better than babysitting a bloated CRM that is a glorified database filled with cold leads.
CarrotCRM is built for inbound leads — the motivated leads who found you online (or called you on the phone). AI tells you who’s hot. Automated follow-up keeps them warm. Your team knows exactly what to do next
“… we switched to CarrotCRM (formerly InvestorFuse 3.0) and haven’t looked back. We were on Podio and were thinking about a custom build on GHL or Salesforce, but CarrotCRM does everything we need for our high-volume wholesaling team and Carrot is more like a partner than a software. It’s the core of our business and they scale with us.”
Nick Perry, CEO, Want To Sell Now (national wholesaler)
Always know the exact next action with every lead, whether you’re an expert or newbie. See all of your daily actions due today and process leads 50% faster than “database” based CRMs where you spend hours searching and filtering.
See every deal from first click to closed contract. Know which marketing channels and team members are producing… and which are burning money.
📍 AI Powered to Save You Time
Not all leads are equal. Our AI Lead Scores every opportunity based on motivation signals, updated dynamically so you instantly know who to call first and who needs more nurture.
With AI Overviews, you get caught up on any lead in 30 seconds, not 10 minutes. AI pulls together property info, seller intent, and conversation history — so you’re never fumbling before a callback.
“CarrotCRM is simple, intuitive and built specifically for how real investor businesses actually operate.”
— Alexander Cruz
“I had no world tech experience, and I just didn’t have an online presence. I didn’t want to have to build a website. So Carrot made that really easy for me.“
— Beau Hollis
“As an acquisitions manager, staying on top of all of your leads and making sure you’re giving the right attention to the right leads is crucial. Don’t waste your time going through a basic CRM and treating every lead the same.“
Kyler Peters
“… our agency has tried all of the website systems. Carrot flat our converts better and makes our clients more money. We won’t use anything else anymore.”
PPC Agency
Built for real estate investors and local service pros. All types. All markets.
Generate more motivated leads. Build trust. Increase marketing ROI. Lose the tech hassle. When you need to get in front of a motivated property owner or renter, we’ve got you covered.
See how Carrot works for your local service business model.
Whether you market to house sellers, land sellers/buyers, tenants, or more… that’s what we do best. We have the data (and results) to prove it.
Wholesaling & Flipping
Attract and convert motivated house sellers and cash buyers.
Land Flippers & Investors
Get in front of the best motivated land sellers (and buyers).
Note Buyers & Sellers
Capture motivated note sellers who are looking to sell online.
Mobile Home Investing
Mobile home leads are hot. Get sellers + buyers faster.
How much is your under-performing website and CRM actually costing you?
Most investors have no idea. Let’s find out.
That “cheaper” website isn’t cheaper. And that spendy custom site, it’s likely costing you 10x more than you think. You just can’t see where the money’s going yet. Slow load times. Weak SEO. Poor conversion. Plugin updates. Security patches. Developer invoices. And the big one… the deals you’re losing that you’ll never know about.
Let’s do the real math.
How many leads and deals are you losing? Here’s how we helped these top local marketersstop the leak.
Don’t settle for ok features that solve problems just… “ok”. That gets expensive fast. Pair Carrot with other top tools for what they’re best at, and let Carrot help you do what we’re best at.
Integrations = freedom to scale the way you want. Don’t get trapped in an “all-in-one.”
Customer Support: We’ve got you covered.
Real humans. Real help. Who really care.
We were the first in real estate investing to offer live chat support. Not because it was trendy — because we knew you needed answers now, not in 48 hours.
Whether you have a quick question, need help dialing in your SEO, or want strategy advice on your next market — we’re here. No bots reading scripts. No outsourced teams who’ve never seen a Carrot site. Just real people who genuinely care about your success.
Launch your site with our Beta AIonboarder (or have us do it for you)
Try Carrot and see how easy it is to setup and customize with our new AI onboarder. Or chat with our team about having us set everything up for you and you can see the results for yourself.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
I wouldn’t have identified the hottest leads without CarrotCRM’s AI lead scoring.
We have hundreds of leads coming in every single week. … Thanks to CarrotCRM, I can see the hottest leads we have. I wouldn’t have identified some of these leads if we didn’t have AI lead scoring.
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.
Carrot is the industry leader for real estate lead generation websites and CRM. But it’s natural to do your due diligence and research your options. Here’s how Carrot stacks up against alternative website & CRM solutions.
Carrot offers best-in-class solutions for real estate websites and real estate CRM. But what does “best in class” mean? It means we hyper-focus on offering complete, standalone software with the features you need — without the bloat or overcomplexity.
Because we’re so focused, we have the time and resources to continuously make our products better and more effective. Here are some of the reasons Carrot stands out against our competitors.
Optimized for conversion
Why do Carrot website templates look similar? Because they’re based on a foundation of converting visitors to leads. We’ve spent years testing and implementing what works.
Unparalleled performance
Site speed and performance matter. A poorly performing site doesn’t rank well in search results and drives away leads. We’re constantly updating the Carrot platform to keep your site lightning fast.
Integrations welcome!
Our websites and CRM integrate seamlessly, but you don’t need to use (or pay for) both. You’re free to integrate your favorite software that fits your exact needs, building your own custom tech stack that drives leads and closes deals.
Unique AI features
AI has a lot of benefits, and we want to give you even more. That’s why we offer useful AI tools that let you work faster and more efficiently. We’re focused on your needs, not just rebuilding the same old AI everyone has.
Real estate niches
You’re so much more than just a real estate investor or agent, so why settle for a generic website template? Find a template, keywords, and content foryour specific specialty.
Action-based CRM
It’s easy to forget what you need to do next or what tasks are most important today. CarrotCRM is an action-based system that keeps you moving without thinking.
If I could go back, I’d tell myself to take this leap sooner. Carrot didn’t just change my business; it changed my life. I’m not stuck grinding through endless cold calls anymore. Now, I’m building something real, with clients who are grateful for my help. It’s exactly the kind of business I wanted. Now, when people reach out to me, they’re truly ready to sell.
Thousands of real estate professionals trust Carrot’s 10+ years of experience developing high-performing, SEO-optimized websites. With age comes wisdom, experience & proof.
HighLevel is built for complex marketing agencies with lots of clients, not for real estate professionals. Carrot is designed for you, offering website templates built for your exact real estate specialty.
WordPress offers millions of customization options, but setting up a site that generates real estate leads takes a lot of work, trial and error, and ongoing maintenance costs.
I was nervous, but to my surprise, my new Carrot site started to immediately generate motivated seller leads… The migration of my already high SEO ranking site to Carrot was a seamless process. Carrot was sensitive to my existing high ranking long-tale URLs and did a great job making sure the migration kept my already ranking content. I closed my 1st Carrot deal within 45 days of launching the new site.
I had a PPC vendor who built a super techy site that they swore would outconvert my Carrot site — it didn’t. I paid $5000 to have a custom site designed that was really pretty, but I got less leads. My expensive, pretty site was converting at 1-2% on SEO when my Carrot site was converting at like 8.5% on SEO.”
My average profit per deal on Carrot leads is close to $40,000 dollars… Prior to using Carrot I had no online presences and no experience building websites and I had no real world tech experience. Carrot made it really easy for me, it was just plug and play. The combination of organic and paid traffic exploded my site with leads. If I could describe Carrot in one word it would be “consistency.” Carrot has given me the ability to count on my deal flow.
Carrot websites are designed to help you get online fast, with a website built to rank well in SEO and generate motivated leads. Start with your favorite template, customize your webpages with the drag-and-drop editor, update your copy to match your brand, and continuously optimize your SEO with the built-in SEO and content tools.
Carrot isn’t just a website provider, we’re your online partners setting you up for success.
Left Main REI has a reputation for being for “serious” investors. But it also has a reputation for being expensive and difficult to set up. CarrotCRM has the features serious investors need without the headache or pricetag.
Stop paying for features you don’t need and getting distracted when you’re supposed to be following up with leads. CarrotCRM keeps you focused and moving in the right direction with purpose.
HighLevel is a complex CRM built for marketing professionals. You can easily spend all your time customizing workflows instead of actually working leads. Where GoHighLevel offers complexity, Carrot offers ease and focus.
CarrotCRM and InvestorFuse 3.0 are exactly the same! Carrot acquired InvestorFuse in 2022. So CarrotCRM is the same amazing real estate CRM as InvestorFuse, just with a new name (and color)!
What I felt was relief… CarrotCRM just worked. Before we had CarrotCRM, we were doing workarounds for every single new lead. Over the day, the week, the month — that’s just a waste of time. [After switching from REsimpli], what I felt was relief… It just worked.
As an acquisitions manager, staying on top of all of your leads and making sure you’re giving the right attention to the right leads is crucial. Don’t waste your time going through a basic CRM and treating every lead the same.
Kyler Peters
Want to Sell Now
We more than 5x’d the number of calls we’re making.
But what’s crazy is that despite the increased calls, we’ve actually saved a lot of time. Our lead managers are putting out 300 calls a day in the same amount of time it used to take to make 60 calls a day.
Tyler Vinsand
757 Property Solutions
See CarrotCRM in action
The best way to find out if a specific solution fits your needs is to talk to someone. Our CRM experts are happy to chat about your needs and the features that will help you the most.
We’ll never try to sell you on something that isn’t a good fit. It’s just a friendly conversation to see if we’re the right solution.
Custom websites may look nice, but they’re expensive, bad at lead generation, and difficult to maintain. Carrot real estate websites have one goal: get you motivated leads.
Carrot websites are built for lead generation. Period.
There’s a reason that we specifically call Carrot sites “lead generation websites” — because that’s what they’re designed to do. We have spent 10+ years testing and optimizing Carrot website templates for peak lead conversion. Everything from what elements to include on a page, where forms should appear, what information those forms should ask for, and even the order of the pages in the navigation. It all makes a difference when you’re trying to generate leads, and it’s all baked into Carrot templates from the start.
At the end of the day, you need a website that generates leads. If your website isn’t optimized to convert visitors into leads, every missed opportunity is a direct hit to your potential revenue. With Carrot, the focus is on making every visit count, ensuring that your site pays for itself through its performance.
I never got any leads from my old custom websites. They looked great, they just didn’t perform.
Mike Wall
EZ Sell Homebuyers
I had a PPC vendor who built a super techy site that they swore would outconvert my Carrot site — it didn’t. I paid $5000 to have a custom site designed that was really pretty, but I got less leads. My expensive, pretty site was converting at 1-2% on SEO when my Carrot site was converting at like 8.5% on SEO.
Ryan Dossey
RyanDossey.com
How Carrot Works
Carrot Websites vs. Custom Websites
Custom
Fully customizable for a totally unique look
High converting website designed to generate leads
Ready to launch in minutes
No tech skills or contractor required for setup
Plugin and security updates done automatically
SEO optimized starter content so you don’t need to write an entire website from stratch
Built-in SEO tools & dashboards
A full suite of content creation tools to boost SEO
Automatically created Location Pages to save countless hours
Forms in the right spots & connected to a built-in lead manager
Performance reporting dashboards
“Unlike custom sites requiring endless trial and error, Carrot is built specifically for real estate investors.”
If you’ve never created a website before, you may be surprised by how long it takes and what goes into its maintenance. Carrot saves you time and money, while giving you a site that performs better right out of the box.
Custom Real Estate Websites
Before launching your site:
Choose a hosting platform
Hire a web designer and developer
Go back and forth on edits and revisions until you’re happy
Make sure your site has an SSL Security Certificate
Do keyword research to find the best keywords for SEO
Write original copy for your entire site from scratch
Choose a forms provider and add forms to the key areas of your site (without any in-app guidance regarding best location for conversion)
Connect those forms to your CRM or lead manager
Create additional pages to target different locations
Get a separate keyword rank tracking tool to monitor your SEO
Time until published: Months
Maintaining your site:
Pay someone to maintain your site (update plugins, apply security updates, fix any page speed issues, etc.)
Contact your web manager and wait for a response if there’s an issue
Contract a new web designer/developer for future changes, updates, and additions
Manually research, write, and publish new pages and blog posts regularly for SEO
Cost: Expensive
Carrot Real Estate Websites
Before launching your site:
Get a custom AI-generated site designed for your business
Monitor your SEO success with the Keyword Rank Tracker & other in-app performance dashboards
Use Carrot’s included Site Audits to identify and fix any issues (or contact our Customer Support team!)
Carrot takes care of site security, maintenance, and foundational performance for you!
Cost: Included!
Carrot websites have the best SEO & search rankings
Carrot websites dominate search rankings for common real estate keywords like “sell my house fast” and “sell my house for cash” thanks to years of optimization and built-in SEO and content tools that help you stand out. In a study of 225 U.S. cities to see which websites appeared as the top search result for the search term “sell my house fast,” Carrot websites appeared at the top of the page most often.
The higher you rank in search results, the better your chances of attracting motivated leads. With a custom site, you’d have to figure out SEO on your own or pay someone to handle it for you while Carrot users already have a head start.
Carrot sites are great because you can literally have a full-fledged website up and running within 10 minutes. Like no joke… The best thing about Carrot websites is they take the headache out of the equation. You don’t have to figure out web hosting, installing WordPress, building forms, picking a theme, writing initial content, initial designs, and so much more. It just works.
Jason Moss
MossTech
59%
of #1 search results for “sell my house fast” are Carrot sites
50%
of the top 3 search results are captured by Carrot sites across 225 U.S. Markets
I want to acknowledge one of the most lucrative tools in my arsenal of marketing. Carrot websites provide more tools, education, content and overall value of any website service I have ever been with. Besides the excellent customer service, the website is capable of producing more traffic than any I’ve been with in the past. And with more feature updates always coming, I don’t see how anyone can even compete with them. Thanks Carrot! You ROCK!
Jeff Steup
Built-in Carrot website features
With a custom website, that’s all you get … just a website. With Carrot, you get a website optimized for performance and lead conversion, plus additional tools and features that help you drive business and improve over time.
Real Estate Websites
Start off strong with a website designed for attracting leads. Templates include SEO-optimized starter copy to help you launch fast.
Drag & Drop Editor
Customize the look of your website by adding different pre-built elements for content, testimonials, FAQs, About Us pages, and more!
SEO Tools
Find the best keywords to rank for, make sure they’re applied correctly, and watch how your search rankings change over time with built-in SEO tools.
Automated Content
Regularly publishing new content on your site is important for SEO. Carrot makes it easy with a variety of content creation and editing tools.
Call Tracking
Understand where every lead comes from … even the ones who call. Carrot offers call tracking for your website and other marketing campaigns.
Real Estate CRM
Don’t just generate leads, manage them through the entire deal pipeline! Carrot leads automatically feed into your real estate CRM, complete with AI features.
See what Carrot can do for your lead generation.
Carrot websites have generated more than 1 million leads and counting. Our leads convert to deals 7x better than non-Carrot leads and have 2.5x the profitability.
Are you ready to improve your lead conversion with a website that actually works?
We have hundreds of authentic customer success stories
You’ll be in good company when you make the switch. See why these customers switched to Carrot — and how they’ve used it to drive some serious results.
“I can’t thank you guys enough.From the technical side, to the product, to the great customer service, and the great mindset and business building things that are beyond just the product you deliver” Eric Stanzyo See More Reviews >
“There’s no need for me to become a subject matter expert on high converting websites when Carrot has already done that for me.” – Adam New See More Reviews >
“Every property we have to wholesale is a perfect lead magnet. It’s a landing page for more buyer leads” – Karen Reynoso See More Reviews >
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Carrot more affordable than a custom website?
In many cases, Carrot websites are more affordable than custom websites. With a custom site, you have to pay for website hosting, design, development, and ongoing maintenance, plus additional tools or plugins for SEO optimization. Additionally, custom real estate websites often don’t convert as well or generate as many leads as Carrot websites. So you have to ask yourself, how much potential revenue are you losing because of a poorly performing custom website?
How quickly can I launch a Carrot website?
Carrot websites can be launched in just a few minutes!
Can I customize the look of my Carrot site?
YES! Many people mistakenly believe that all Carrot websites look the same. But the drag-and-drop editor allows you to add features to your webpages and customize the look and feel. Your site will look unique to your brand!
Do Carrot websites come with a CRM?
A free CarrotCRM account is included with all Carrot web memberships! If you want to unlock more CRM tools as your company grows, you can upgrade your CarrotCRM subscription at any time.
Trusted by thousands of real estate professionals.
There’s a reason the top investors and agents choose Carrot. We’ve helped them grow their real estate businesses by providing industry leading tactics, training, and support to give them a predictable lead generation pipeline that increases profit. Carrot helps create businesses of impact and freedom and we’d love to help you too.
You can set up your new website yourself in just a few minutes. But if you want some additional assistance, we have you covered! You can purchase a Quickstart or Quickstart+ setup package during checkout. Or contact customer support via the live chat to add a setup package at any time! If you’re interested in a CSU, connect with our sales team.
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With Quickstart, our website specialists:
Personalize your site by uploading your logo, brand colors, and company bios
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Upload and format your credibility-building testimonials (client quotes)
Perform a tech-check to make sure all your links, forms, and integrations are working correctly
And more …
Quickstart+
Quickstart+ goes beyond basic setup and focuses on additional personalization for your brand and market.
With Quickstart+, you can expect:
Everything included in Quickstart, plus …
Location pages created targeting your specific markets
Homepage content personalization to stand out
New design elements added to make your site look more unique
A strategy session with our experts to generate the best leads!
And more …
Concierge Set Up (CSU)
Want the ultimate setup experience? Carrot’s Concierge Set Up is perfect for customers with defined brands and focuses on making your site truly unique.
With Carrot’s CSU, you get:
Even more targeted location landing pages to really localize your site for your market
Custom design elements that give your website a unique look
Unique, SEO-optimized website copy to meet Google’s content requirements
Layouts that amplify your credibility by highlighting videos, customer quotes, and rating badges
And more…
You can’t purchase this service during the checkout process. If you’re interested in CSU, schedule a sales call.
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After signing up for Premium Support, my only comment is, “Why did I wait so long?” Although I have had only three phone calls, I have learned so much in such a short time. I try not to think how much time I wasted building my website without Premium Support (let alone the possible leads I lost).
Don Rousseau
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Every paid subscription of CarrotCRM comes with onboarding and support included!
Onboarding
Quickly and easily set up your CRM exactly how you need it with our onboarding assistance.
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CarrotCRM Boost
Give your CRM a jumpstart with professional setup services. All CarrotCRM accounts come with onboarding and integration support, but CarrotCRM Boost gives you another option if you want more of the setup handled for you.
Feature
Included Setup
CarrotCRM Boost
Discovery & Strategy Call
Lead Migration
Integrations Setup
Campaign Setup & Labeling
Training Call
Channel Setup Only available with the Team plan
Campaign Autoresponders Setup Only available with Scale & Team plans
Contract Setup
A2P 10DLC Assistance
Autonomous Lead Manager (ALM) Setup
AI Lead Scoring Configuration
TV Dashboard Configuraiton Only available with the Team Plan
“I absolutely love Carrot. It’s very user friendly. I love the amount of information Carrot provides. They’re always up-to-date and ahead in sharing information in relation to wholesaling real estate, what’s going on in the marketplace, trying to be ahead of the game. I appreciate all of those things that you don’t necessarily get with other providers, like Wix or other sites that are not tailored specifically for investors. I appreciate the niche, I think it’s really valuable.“
“What Carrot does best is really teaches you how to do it. I don’t come from a software background. I’d rather have a hammer in my hand and build something. But when it comes to Carrot, the training is just there.“
We’re committed to helping you succeed with every form of lead generation. While an awesome website is a critical part of converting leads, there are many ways to drive leads to your site. To help with this, we’ve gathered a marketplace of trusted vendors to give you the support you need.
If you’ve been closing real estate deals for a while, you’ve probably noticed a pattern: some sellers show up ready to move forward, while others take months of follow-up and still fizzle out. The difference usually isn’t what you say or how good the deal is. It’s often where the lead came from.
After working with 6,000+ investors, we’ve seen exactly how top closers separate the noise from the opportunities. They know that the best leads are the ones that make you the most money in the shortest amount of time, with the least amount of energy.
In this post, we’ll break down which lead sources consistently deliver motivated sellers, how to spot the ones worth prioritizing, and how to tighten up your process so you’re spending less time chasing and more time closing.
Because in this business, more leads won’t fix your pipeline. Better ones will.
Summary: The best real estate leads aren’t just plentiful—they’re motivated. This post breaks down why inbound leads outperform outbound, how to identify true seller motivation, and how tools like Carrot CRM help prioritize leads that actually close. Learn how website optimization and AI lead scoring can dramatically improve your ROI without increasing your marketing spend.
7 Key Takeaways
1. Not all leads are equal. The biggest difference in how fast and profitably a deal closes often comes down to the source of the lead, not just how well you pitch.
2. Outbound = low intent, high effort. Cold calling, texting, or blasting postcards can bring in leads, but most aren’t ready to sell. They require heavy follow-up, burn energy, and usually take months to close.
3. Inbound = high intent, faster closings. Sellers who search for you (SEO/PPC) or directly fill out a form are already motivated. Investors report these leads close in fewer touches, with less chasing, and on much shorter timelines.
4. Seller behavior signals motivation.
→ Direct call = high urgency
→ Website form = strong intent (often after months of consideration)
→ Cold call response = curiosity, but more often low urgency
5. Motivation shifts over time. A seller who sounded “hot” at first may stall when it’s time to act, while a lukewarm one may heat up later. That’s why prioritization has to be ongoing, not a one-time judgment.
6. Data beats guesswork. Relying on memory, scattered notes, or assumptions (“they called three times, so they must be motivated”) causes missed deals. Tracking lead scores, sources, and engagement data paints the real picture.
7. Your website is the hub that multiplies ROI. Every channel—direct mail, ads, radio, or referrals—eventually drives people to Google you. If your site is slow, generic, or confusing, you leak deals. Fast, trustworthy, conversion-optimized sites (with testimonials, strong About page, and clear CTAs) turn intent into action.
The Best and Worst Lead Sources for Motivated Sellers
If you talk to ten different marketing folks or investors, you’ll hear ten different ‘best’ ways to get deals.
Everyone has “the best way”
The cold-calling coaches say you just need to “dial more numbers.” Direct mail coaches promise your next campaign will work if you just tweak the headline. Ad agencies tell you that if results are flat, it’s your targeting. Each channel has its champions. And when the channel doesn’t deliver, the message is that you did it wrong. And conveniently, the fix is to buy their course or their list.
So let’s look at the fundamentals of how people actually behave when they’re ready to sell. It’ll help you decide for yourself where you want to spend your time and energy.
Outbound leads: High effort, low intent
Most homeowners don’t want to be interrupted. They’re not hoping for a cold call in the middle of dinner. They’re not excited about seeing your ad when they’re just scrolling on social media, hoping to get away from the real world. That kind of outbound marketing (where you reach out to people first — whether they asked for it or not) can bring you leads, but the intent is usually low.
Sellers aren’t necessarily ready or motivated — they just happened to pick up the phone or glance at a postcard. That’s why outbound leads usually take more follow-up, more conversations, and more time to close.
Outbound channels like cold calling or TV may take 40–50 leads to close a single deal.
But with inbound marketing, the math changes.
Inbound leads: Sellers who find you
Let’s compare outbound leads with someone who takes action on their own.
They typed “sell my house fast in Dallas” into Google and landed on your website. Or they saved your website after getting a postcard and finally filled out the form when the timing was right. Or they were learning about who the real estate investors in their area were and came across your Google Maps profile. These are inbound leads — the ones who find you. They’re actively looking to sell.
The difference shows up in the numbers. Keith Sant shared that when he relied on cold calling, it took 35+ leads to get one deal, and closings stretched out six months or more. “I was burnt out. I was talking to people who weren’t ready to sell, and I felt like I was spinning my wheels,” he said.
After shifting to inbound SEO leads, he closes one in ~15, often in under 90 days.
Here’s what that looks like side by side:
Outbound (Cold Calling)
Inbound (SEO + Website)
Leads per Deal
1 in 35
1 in 15
Time to Close
6–12 months
< 90 days
Seller Mindset
Often annoyed or unmotivated
Already motivated and grateful
Energy Cost
High — constant chasing and rejection
Low — fewer touches, warmer conversations
As Keith put it: “I’m not cold-calling or pestering people anymore. Now, when people reach out to me, they’re truly ready to sell.”
“There may be a thousand visitors to my site and only one converts, but that one person is hyper motivated. Could you imagine having to cold call a thousand people to get the same result? That’s life-changing because it’s really hard to put a price on your time. Even if you don’t get a ton of traffic, the traffic you do get is hyper motivated.”
When most people think of a “motivated seller,” they picture a tough life event: foreclosure, probate, divorce, or job transfer. Those factors can create urgency, but they don’t automatically make someone ready to sign a deal with you.
What often matters more is how the seller shows up. Their behavior — and where they came from — is the first real signal of motivation.
If they call you directly.
That’s the clearest sign of urgency. People don’t usually pick up the phone unless they’ve already decided to act. A direct call tells you they’re not just exploring; they want help now. These are the leads most likely to turn into a deal quickly.
If they fill out a form on your website.
That’s also a strong sign, because filling out a form requires effort. It means they’ve weighed options, landed on your site, and taken the step to share their details. In many cases, they’ve been thinking about it for months. Maybe they kept your postcard or saw your sign long ago, but when the timing was right, they Googled you and finally hit “submit.”
Carrot member Brad Woodall has shared stories where that exact pattern turned into a closed deal. That moment when they seek you out is the clearest sign of motivation.
If they respond to your cold call or text.
That’s weaker motivation. They might just be curious about what their house is worth or willing to chat because you caught them at the right time. But curiosity doesn’t equal urgency, and those leads often fizzle out or take heavy follow-up to convert.
This is why investors who rely on inbound sources — sellers who find you — consistently see faster closes and stronger profits. The intent is built in.
The challenge is that in the middle of working dozens or hundreds of leads, it’s not always obvious which ones are “truly” motivated. That’s where Carrot CRM’s AI Lead Scoring comes in.
Carrot CRM’s AI lead scoring
Instead of relying on gut feeling, the system automatically scores every lead based on the criteria you set — including source, engagement level, property details, and more.
You can customize the scoring criteria to match what matters most in your business. Whether that’s the lead source, how quickly they respond, how many times they’ve engaged with you, or other factors that signal true motivation.
As Kyler Peters from Want to Sell Now put it:
“We have hundreds of leads coming in every single week. Thanks to Carrot CRM, I can see the hottest leads we have. I wouldn’t have identified some of these leads without AI lead scoring.”
Check out this video to learn about AI Lead Scoring:
How to Track and Prioritize the Leads That Actually Close
You might say that you can track your leads in a spreadsheet or an all-in-one CRM. But the problem you’ll then face is that your scores will be static once you enter them.
But that’s not the case in real life.
Motivation isn’t static. A seller who sounds enthusiastic on your first call might stall out when it’s actually time to sign. Someone who barely seemed interested at first might circle back weeks later, ready to move quickly.
That’s why you can’t treat every lead the same, every day. If you try to keep track in your head, on paper, or even in a static spreadsheet, you’ll miss the bigger picture:
A seller who keeps calling might look “motivated,” but are they asking serious questions — or just kicking the tires?
Another who goes quiet might look “cold,” but did they just open your last email twice and spend time on your site?
A lead source might look productive because it brings in lots of names, but does it actually lead to contracts?
Manually piecing all of this together is frustrating and often misleading. Investors burn time chasing the wrong people while the real opportunities slip through the cracks.
The most successful closers rely on real-time data to guide their next move. Instead of running on gut feeling, they let the numbers show them:
Which sellers are moving closer to a decision
Which leads are cooling off
Which campaigns and sources are actually worth reinvesting in
That’s where Carrot CRM comes in. It’s built to take the guesswork out of lead prioritization:
Track calls from your website and get AI-powered transcripts, summaries, and call ratings.
Auto-assigned lead scores show you at a glance who’s most likely to close.
Dynamic scoring updates automatically as new conversations or details come in, so you’re never working off stale assumptions.
Campaign insights let you see which sources actually produce closed deals (not just leads).
Visual pipeline tracking shows where every opportunity stands.
Grouping by source makes it simple to see how SEO leads perform versus PPC, direct mail, or cold outreach.
Filtering and follow-up tools keep hot leads front and center so nothing slips through the cracks.
How to 10x Your ROI Without Adding Any New Marketing
The common way of thinking goes like this: if 1 out of 100 website visitors becomes a lead, then to get more leads, you need more traffic.
Want three new leads a day? Just drive 300 people instead of 100.
That mindset keeps investors chasing more campaigns, more lists, and more ads.
But there’s another way, and it’s often more powerful.
Improving your website
Instead of only trying to increase traffic, focus on improving how well your website converts the traffic you already have. Conversion is within your control. Algorithms, list quality, and ad costs aren’t. By simply raising the percentage of visitors who actually turn into leads, you can multiply results without spending more on marketing.
Last month, the average conversion rate across all Carrot member websites combined was 4.5%—nearly double the industry average of 2.5%. How many high-profit deals are you willing to lose to a low-converting website?
Moreover, before anyone makes a decision to contact you, they usually look you up online. A postcard might catch their attention, but the site is where they decide if you’re credible. A radio ad might spark curiosity, but the site is where they can actually reach out. Even when you cold call, many sellers will still Google you afterward before they consider working with you.
So you have to think of your website as the one place where all your marketing connects. Every channel — direct mail, PPC, cold calling, radio, even word of mouth — should ultimately point people back to your site. That’s the hub. Like this…
When a seller lands on your site, they’re already showing intent. They searched, clicked, or followed up from one of your campaigns. That makes this moment critical. This is why the website has to carry more weight than just being “a place to be online.” It’s the decision point.
And if that experience goes wrong, the opportunity is lost.
Where sellers most often drop off
❌ Slow load times: If a page takes more than a few seconds, people hit the back button. They’ll never even see your brand.
❌ Generic design: If your site looks like every other “we buy houses” template, sellers assume you’re like everyone else and there’s no special reason to be interested in you. That makes it harder to build trust.
❌ Confusing layout: If the phone number or form is buried, or navigation is unclear, sellers won’t hunt around. They’ll leave and find someone easier to contact.
But you don’t need a fancy redesign to fix this. Simple improvements go a long way toward building confidence and capturing high-intent leads. This is why we make it easy to customize a Carrot website (here are a few ways), and even offer a white-glove “concierge” design & setup service if you want to outsource!
✅ Customer quotes and testimonials: Nothing is more persuasive than proof from real sellers who chose you and had a good outcome.
✅ A strong About Us page: Homeowners want to know who they’re dealing with. Sharing your story and team photos shows you’re real, not just another faceless company.
✅ Clear calls to action: Make your phone number, form, or chat box front and center. The easier you make it to reach out, the more people will.
✅ Fast performance: Speed alone communicates professionalism. A site that loads instantly feels more trustworthy than one that lags.
Wrapping It Up
If you want to close more of the right deals without piling on extra work, the path is clear. You need to focus on better leads, not more leads.
But knowing these truths is only half the battle. Pairing them with the right system is what turns ideas into results. That’s where Carrot CRM comes in. It helps you & your team know which leads to focus on by putting these principles into action:
Lead Scoring: See motivation at a glance, with scores that update as new info comes in.
Campaign Insights: Identify which sources are producing the most profitable deals.
Visual Pipeline: Keep hot opportunities front and center without digging through notes.
Smart Filters: Group and sort leads by source, score, or status in seconds.
Instead of juggling spreadsheets or guessing who’s serious, you get a clear picture of where to focus your energy — and more deals close as a result.
1. What makes some seller leads better than others?
Answer: Not all leads have the same level of motivation. The best leads usually come from inbound sources—like SEO or PPC—where sellers are actively searching for solutions. These leads close faster, require less follow-up, and are often more profitable than outbound leads generated from cold calls or mass mailers.
2. How do I identify a truly motivated seller?
Answer: A motivated seller typically takes proactive steps—such as calling you directly, filling out a form on your website, or reaching out after researching your company. These actions show urgency and intent, making them more likely to close quickly compared to someone who only responds passively to cold outreach.
3. Are outbound leads like cold calling still worth it?
Answer: Outbound leads can work, but they usually take much longer to convert and require more energy. For example, cold calling might take 30–35 leads to close one deal, while inbound SEO leads often close in 1 out of 15. Outbound is high effort, low intent, while inbound is low effort, high intent.
4. What’s the fastest way to improve my real estate lead quality?
Answer: Instead of chasing more leads, focus on optimizing your website and lead tracking. A high-converting, trustworthy website captures more motivated sellers. Pairing that with tools like Carrot CRM’s AI Lead Scoring helps you instantly identify which leads are worth prioritizing.
5. How can Carrot CRM AI Lead Scoring help me close more deals?
Answer: Carrot CRM AI Lead Scoring automatically ranks leads based on motivation signals like response speed, engagement, and lead source. It updates in real time, unlike spreadsheets or guesswork, so you can instantly see which sellers are serious and ready to close.
6. Can I increase my ROI without adding new marketing campaigns?
Answer: Yes! By improving conversion rates on your website and tightening up your lead prioritization, you can 10x your ROI without spending extra on ads or lists. Even small improvements—like faster load speeds, better testimonials, and clear calls to action—can dramatically increase the number of inbound leads who actually close.
7. Why is inbound marketing (like SEO) more effective than outbound?
Answer: Inbound marketing attracts sellers who are already looking to sell. They searched, clicked, and contacted you on their own. Outbound efforts, on the other hand, interrupt people who may not be ready. That’s why inbound leads are typically more motivated, close faster, and take less work.
8. What role does my website play in lead conversion?
Answer: Your website is the hub where all marketing channels point. Even if a seller hears about you through cold calling or direct mail, they’ll likely check your site before contacting you. If your site is slow, generic, or confusing, (or not even showing up in Google) motivated sellers may leave before reaching out. A strong, professional site builds trust and turns curious visitors into actual leads.
9. How often should I re-prioritize my leads?
Answer: Motivation changes over time. Top closers don’t treat every lead the same—they constantly adjust based on new signals. With tools like Carrot CRM, lead scores update automatically as sellers respond or timelines shift, ensuring you always know which leads are worth your focus.
