What the Top Leasing Agents Do Differently

Asking one question — "What other properties are you touring?" — increases tour-to-lease conversions by 27%. Most agents never ask it.

Top performers ask 5x more open-ended questions than average performers. Average agents spend about 1.7 minutes on discovery before pitching.

Top agents listen nearly half the time. Average agents listen only 28% of the time.

Across tens of thousands of tours on Rilla, prospects are only asked to apply 41% of the time — even though asking for the application increases conversions by 35%.

Top leasing agents speak at 184 words per minute. Fast follow-up emails sent within hours of a tour lift lease rates by 23%.

After analyzing over 50,000 on-site tours, one of the clearest findings in the data is also one of the simplest.

When leasing agents ask "What other properties are you touring?" — conversion rates go up by 27%.

That's not a feature improvement. That's not a new CRM. It's a single sentence that takes three seconds to say. And most agents never say it.

The reason it works is not mysterious. The question does what good discovery questions always do: it shifts the agent from pitch mode into information mode. Suddenly the agent knows who they're competing with, what the prospect is weighing, and where to focus the rest of the conversation.

The data says it converts better. The mechanism is not complicated. And yet the behavior is rare.That tells you something important about the gap between knowing what works and actually doing it.

Top leasing agents ask 5x more open-ended questions than average performers.

Average agents spend about 1.7 minutes on discovery. Then they pitch. They walk prospects through amenities, floor plans, price points — all before understanding why the person moved, what they're looking for, or what would actually close them.

Top performers invert this. They ask before they tell. They find out what matters before they talk about what they offer. The pitch, when it comes, is targeted — because it's built on what the prospect actually said.

"Why are you moving?" is another data-backed example. When agents ask it, close rates increase by 37%. The answer tells the agent everything: what the prospect is running from, what they're hoping for, and what urgency exists. It's the context that makes everything else in the conversation land.

Discovery is not small talk. It is the work.

Here is the talk-to-listen breakdown from the data.

Top performers: 53% talking, 47% listening. Average performers: 72% talking, 28% listening.

The difference is not subtle. Average agents spend more than two-thirds of the conversation talking. Top agents are gathering information.

This matters because leasing agents — like most salespeople — are trained to present. The instinct is to sell the property: describe the finishes, walk the layout, explain the pricing. That instinct is not wrong, but it has an override: if you don't know what the prospect values, you don't know what to present.

The agents who listen nearly half the time are not being passive. They're being efficient. They're learning what to say before they say it.

This is the most striking finding in the dataset.

Asking for the application increases tour conversions by 35%. Top leasing professionals ask for it 17% more often than average performers. And yet — across tens of thousands of tours on Rilla — prospects are asked to apply only 41% of the time.

That means in nearly six out of ten tours, the agent shows the apartment, answers questions, says goodbye — and never asks the prospect to take the next step.

This is not a script problem or a training problem. It is a discomfort problem. Asking feels pushy. Agents worry about coming on too strong. So they don't ask, and the prospect walks out with no commitment and no clear next step.

The data says otherwise. Asking works. Not asking is the thing that costs leases.

Two more signals from the data that don't get enough attention.

Speaking rate. Top performers speak at an average of 184 words per minute. This is not about rushing — it signals confidence, energy, and engagement. A flat, slow cadence reads as disinterest. 184 words per minute reads as someone who knows what they're talking about and is glad to be there.

Follow-up speed. Fast personalized follow-up emails sent via Rilla within hours of a tour increase lease rates by 23%. The prospect is thinking about the apartment on the bus ride home. The agent who reaches them in that window — with a message that references the actual conversation, not a template — catches them at the right moment.

Most agents follow up the next day, or the day after, or not at all. The data says the window closes fast.

The behaviors that separate top leasing agents from the rest are not expensive to implement. They are behavioral.

Ask "What other properties are you touring?" Put it in your standard tour script. It takes three seconds and adds 27% more conversions.

Spend more time on discovery. Before you pitch, ask why they're moving. Ask what's most important to them. 1.7 minutes is not enough. Top agents ask 5x more open-ended questions — start by doubling yours.

Listen more than you talk. Track it in your next tour. If you're talking more than 60% of the time, slow down and ask another question.

Ask for the application. Before every prospect walks out the door. The discomfort of asking is real. So is the 35% conversion lift.

Follow up fast. Same day. Personalized to the conversation you actually had. The window is short.

Rilla is the conversation analytics platform for in-person sales and service teams. The platform has analyzed over 100 million minutes of recorded customer conversation across 200+ companies. Rilla turns recorded sales conversations into structured coaching insight, scorecards, and rep development loops. Teams using Rilla typically see a 25% lift in close rate within 90 days.