The single most profitable habit that brings past clients back to you for every move they make

At the closing table, the buyers you carried through months of showings and late calls mean it when they say they would use you again. In NAR’s 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, 91% of US buyers said they would use their agent again or recommend them, up from 88% in 2024. The typical US seller now owns their home for 11 years before selling, up from 10 and the longest on record (NAR, 2025), so that goodwill has a long time to fade.

Why don’t past clients use the same agent again?

Past clients drift in the years between moves, and the agent in their life the year they decide gets the call.In NAR’s 2025 survey, 91% of US buyers would use their agent again or recommend them, while 18% of repeat buyers used their previous agent. Zillow’s 2025 survey shows the same pattern: 79% against 9%.

The two NAR numbers answer separate questions, so read them as a pattern rather than a conversion rate. In Zillow’s 2025 Consumer Housing Trends Report, 79% of buyers who used an agent would hire the same one again, and 9% of buyers found their agent through past experience.

What should an agent send past clients after the closing?

Four check-ins over the first two years, each about the client’s life rather than the market, keep you the agent they think of first: a follow-through in week 1, a settling-in question around month 3, a note on the anniversary of the keys, and anything that touches what they told you.

1. Week 1, the follow-through. Send whatever you mentioned at the closing, such as the contractor’s number or the photo of them on the porch with the keys. It proves you listened, and it costs one message.
2. Month 3, the settling-in question. Ask about the thing they worried about when they bought: “Did the basement stay dry through all that rain?” or “How is Maya finding the new school?”
3. The anniversary of the keys. One line on the date they moved in, with something from their year that they told you about, like the new baby or the kitchen they were planning to redo.
4. Whenever their life touches what they told you. When a house like theirs sells or a café opens on their street, send it with one sentence: “Saw this and thought of what you said about wanting a bigger yard for Max.”

Why do check-ins work when a monthly market newsletter does not?

Each check-in is about them, so a past client reads it as a person keeping in touch rather than an agent keeping a list warm.A market newsletter goes to everyone on the list, and a client can tell it was written for nobody in particular.

Each check-in also depends on still having what they told you when the month comes round. The second and the fourth are impossible without it, and they are the ones that make a past client feel remembered.

If you have not taken it yet, see how you compare with the typical US agent and with agents of 16+ years, on the same NAR numbers the report uses.