Real estate competitor analysis for agents (not a CMA)
Real estate competitor analysis for agents and brokerages: listing share, reviews, area guides, social and ads under housing ad rules, plus a monthly routine.
Real estate competitor analysis, on this page, means studying the agents and brokerages that compete with you for the same sellers and buyers. It is not a comparative market analysis (CMA), the report that prices a home against recent comparable sales. The two get mixed up in search results, so it is worth being clear: a CMA helps you price a listing, and a competitor analysis helps you win it.
Who you are actually competing with
Your competitors are the agents who win listings in your farm area, not every licensee in the city.
Say you farm three neighbourhoods in Charlotte with about 1,200 homes between them. Your competitive set is the handful of agents who list most there, the team or brokerage with the biggest local presence, and any newcomer suddenly spending on ads in those streets. That is five names, not fifty.
Add one more category: the companies that sell leads to agents, such as the big property portals. They are not rivals for the listing, but they shape where buyers and sellers start.
The general local checks (map pack, Google Business Profile, reviews per month) are in our guide to competitor monitoring for local businesses. What follows is specific to agents.
Listing share is the scoreboard
Everything else in this guide explains listing share. Track it first.
Count closed sales by listing agent in your farm area for the past twelve months, then monthly from there. Many MLSs and boards offer market share reports to members; your broker may already have one.
Note each rival's days on market and list-to-sale price ratio. These are the numbers agents put in listing presentations ("my homes sell in 12 days"). Check their claims against MLS data before a seller asks you to.
Watch new listings in the spring. In many markets listings pick up as the weather turns, and rivals start seller campaigns weeks before. A monthly count shows who is winning the season while it is happening.
No general monitoring tool reads MLS data or portal listings, including ours. This part is manual.
Reviews show the niche
Agent reviews are specific about situations. Read rivals' Google reviews and their profiles on the portals your clients use, and note the words that repeat: "relocating", "first-time buyer", "downsizing", "probate", "divorce", a neighbourhood name.
A rival whose last twenty reviews mention relocation has probably built a niche through employers or relocation companies. That tells you which segments are taken and which are open. Our guide to finding positioning in competitors' reviews turns this into wording.
Content: area guides and valuation pages
Agent and brokerage websites compete with three kinds of page.
| Page type | What it does | What a new one tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Neighbourhood or area guide | Ranks for "living in [area]" searches | They are expanding their farm |
| Monthly market report | Gives sellers a reason to subscribe | They are building a seller list |
| Home valuation page | Captures seller leads with a free estimate | They are chasing listings, often with ads |
Read each rival's sitemap and count these pages. Then do our competitor content audit on the one rival whose area guides rank above yours.
Social and ads, under housing ad rules
Much of an agent's visible marketing happens on Instagram and Facebook: listing videos, "just listed" and "just sold" posts, open house announcements. Counting a rival's "just sold" posts over a quarter is a rough, free proxy for their activity.
Ads work differently in real estate, because housing is a regulated ad category.
Meta. Housing ads must run in a Special Ad Category. Meta's audience rules for these campaigns remove postcode targeting and location exclusions, add a 15-mile radius around city and address targets in the US and Canada (10 miles in the UK and much of Europe), fix age at 18 to 65+, require all genders and remove lookalike audiences.
Google. Its policy for housing ads in the US and Canada bars targeting or excluding by gender, age, parental status, marital status or ZIP code.
The result is that every agent's targeting is broad, so the competition is in the creative and the offer. Look rivals up in the Meta Ad Library and sort their ads into listing ads and seller lead ads ("find out what your home is worth"). An agent running more seller lead ads than listing ads is probably short of listings and paying to fix it.
Buyer agreements made the buyer offer visible
Since 17 August 2024, under the NAR practice changes, offers of compensation can no longer be made on the MLS, and agents working with a buyer must have a written agreement before touring a home.
That turned the buyer-side offer into something agents explain on their websites: what they do for buyers, how they are paid, and on what terms the agreement can end. Read rivals' buyer pages every quarter. How they frame their value is now a competitive position in its own right. This is a summary of public changes, not legal advice.
A monthly real estate competitor analysis routine
| When | What to check | Where | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly | New listings and closed sales by agent in your farm | MLS | 20 min |
| Monthly | New ads, listing ads vs seller lead ads | Meta Ad Library, Ads Transparency Center | 10 min |
| Monthly | Just listed and just sold posts | Instagram, Facebook | 10 min |
| Monthly | Review count and repeated situation words | Google, portal profiles | 10 min |
| Quarterly | New area guides, valuation pages, buyer pages | Their sitemap and site | 20 min |
Where Figo fits
Ours, so judge accordingly. Figo checks each rival weekly for new Meta, Google and TikTok ads, new and changed pages on their website such as a new area guide or valuation page, their Instagram and Facebook posts, their Google rating and review count, and Reddit threads that mention them, which in real estate are often "can anyone recommend an agent in..." posts.
It does not read the MLS, Zillow, Realtor.com or any listing or sold data, so listing share stays your job.
For an agent whose business comes from referrals and past clients, the monthly hour above is enough. Teams, brokerages and agencies marketing several agents get more from it. Figo starts at $49 a month for three competitors, with a seven day free trial.
Questions people ask
How do I find another agent's market share?
Ask your MLS or board what market share reports it offers, because many provide them to members. Otherwise, count closed sales by listing agent in your farm area over the last twelve months from MLS searches and divide by the total.
Can I target real estate ads by ZIP code?
Not for housing ads in the US. Meta does not allow postcode targeting for housing campaigns and adds a 15-mile radius around cities and addresses, and Google bars ZIP code targeting for housing ads in the US and Canada.
How many competing agents should I track?
Five is plenty: the three agents who list most in your farm area, the strongest team or brokerage, and one newcomer who is spending on ads. Review the list every six months.
Is a free CMA a good lead magnet against competitors?
It works because sellers want a number, which is why so many competing agents offer one. The differentiator is speed and specificity, so check how quickly a rival's valuation page actually responds before copying it.
See it on your own competitors
Figo checks their ads, pages, rankings and reviews every week, then tells you what to do in plain words. Set up in two minutes.
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