5 Problems that Real Estate Agents & Brokers are Facing in Covid-19 Pandemic | By Sawan Kumar

If you are a realtor or broker watching your pipeline shrink while costs climb, the five real estate agent problems I outline below are almost certainly draining your business right now — and each one has a fix you can start today.

Direct Answer: The five biggest real estate agent problems in the post-COVID market are (1) not having enough listings, (2) high lead cost relative to conversion ratio, (3) no established sales process, (4) constant rejection fatigue, and (5) inability to leverage technology. Solving any one of them lifts revenue; solving all five rebuilds the business.

Problem 1: Not Having Enough Listings

The first and most common of the real estate agent problems I hear about is a thin listing inventory. Agents tell me they are working harder than ever, yet their pipeline of properties to sell has collapsed since the pandemic. Without listings, there is nothing to market, nothing to show, and nothing to convert — the engine simply has no fuel.

The fix is not luck. It is a systematic listing-acquisition routine: targeted neighbourhood outreach, a content asset that positions you as the local expert, and a referral loop with past sellers. As someone who has trained 79,000+ students globally on systems like this, I can tell you the agents with full pipelines are not better salespeople — they have better processes.

Problem 2: Lead Cost Too High Compared to Conversion Ratio

Problem two is the silent killer: your lead cost is climbing, but your conversion ratio is not keeping pace. You spend more on Facebook ads, Google ads, and lead-gen platforms every month, and yet the same percentage of leads close. The math stops working.

Here is the direct answer agents need: if your lead cost has doubled and your conversion has stayed flat, the problem is almost never the traffic source — it is the follow-up. Most agents abandon a lead after 2-3 touches. The data shows it takes 8-12 touches to convert a cold real estate lead. Fix the follow-up before you touch the ad budget.

Problem 3: No Established Sales Process

The third of the major real estate agent problems is structural: you do not have an established sales process, and you are crazy about it, but you have not built one. Every deal feels like starting from scratch. Every client conversation reinvents the wheel. Every follow-up depends on you remembering.

A real estate sales process needs five defined stages: lead capture, qualification call, property matching, viewing and offer, and post-close referral request. Each stage needs a scripted trigger, a defined output, and a CRM record. Without this, you are not running a business — you are running on adrenaline. I teach this exact framework to my Dubai-based consulting clients and online students because it is the single biggest lever in the industry.

Problem 4: Dealing with Tons of Rejection

Problem four is the emotional one — and the one most agents will not talk about publicly. You are dealing with tons and tons of rejection. Cold calls hang up. Listing presentations lose to a cheaper agent. Buyers ghost you after three viewings. The math of real estate means rejection is the daily weather, not the occasional storm.

The reframe is this: rejection is data, not a verdict on your worth. Top agents track their rejection ratio the same way they track their conversion ratio. If you make 100 calls and get 95 nos, that is a 5% appointment rate — and that is a working business if your numbers behind it are right. Rejection only kills you when you take it personally instead of statistically.

Problem 5: Not Leveraging Technology

The fifth of the real estate agent problems is the one that compounds all the others: you are not leveraging technology well. You are tracking leads in a spreadsheet or worse — in your head. You are sending follow-ups manually. You are paying for tools you do not use and missing tools that would 10x your output.

• CRM: A single source of truth for every lead, every conversation, every next step. GoHighLevel, HubSpot, or even a properly configured Pipedrive will work.
• Automation: Email and SMS follow-up sequences that fire automatically the moment a lead enters your funnel.
• AI tools: Property description writing, market-report generation, and personalised outreach at scale.
• Booking calendars: Stop the back-and-forth — let prospects self-book viewings.

How These Five Problems Connect

The reason these real estate agent problems feel overwhelming is that they reinforce each other. Low listings increase your dependence on paid leads. Expensive leads with no sales process produce high rejection. High rejection without technology to absorb the volume burns you out. Fixing one problem in isolation rarely sticks — the system needs all five rebuilt together.

The good news: the order matters. Fix the sales process first because it determines what to do with every lead. Then layer technology on top of that process. Then attack lead cost and listing volume — because now you have the infrastructure to convert what you bring in. Rejection becomes a manageable number, not a personal crisis.

Where to Start This Week

Pick the one problem that is bleeding you the most today. If you have leads but cannot close — fix the process. If you have a process but no leads — fix the listing engine. If you have both but you are exhausted — fix the technology stack. Do not try to solve all five at once. Solve the one with the highest leverage and the rest get easier.

Across 74+ courses and seven years of consulting from Dubai, I have watched agents go from drowning in these exact five problems to running calm, profitable practices. The difference is never talent. It is always the willingness to build the system instead of grinding harder inside the chaos.

Pick your biggest of the five today and spend 60 minutes writing down what your current process looks like — that single hour of honesty is the entire starting point.