CRE Follow-Up Email Sequences That Actually Get Responses

Most CRE brokers who try cold email give up after the first or second touchpoint. They send an email, hear nothing, send one follow-up, and conclude that "cold email doesn't work." What they're actually experiencing is a sequencing problem, not an outreach problem.

The data is consistent across B2B sales: the majority of responses come from follow-up emails, not the initial outreach. Commercial real estate is no different. The brokers generating consistent meetings from cold outreach aren't sending one perfect email - they're running thoughtful, well-timed sequences that stay in front of prospects until the moment is right.

Here's how to build a CRE follow-up email sequence that actually gets responses.

Why Follow-Up Is Where Deals Start

A building owner who doesn't respond to your first email isn't necessarily uninterested. They may be in the middle of a renovation, dealing with a problem tenant, waiting on financing, or simply buried under a hundred other priorities. Your email landed at the wrong moment.

A well-constructed follow-up sequence keeps you present without being pushy. Each touch is a new opportunity to hit the prospect at the right time - and to come in with a slightly different angle that might resonate better than your first approach. The goal isn't to wear them down; it's to be there when they're ready.

The Core Principles of Effective CRE Follow-Up

Before diving into specific sequences, understand the principles that separate effective follow-up from noise:

• Each email must add value. Never send a follow-up that says only "just checking in" or "circling back on this." Every touch should include something new - a market data point, a relevant transaction, a question, a different angle on your value proposition.
• Vary the angle, not just the timing. If your first email led with a tenant looking for space in their building, your second might lead with recent lease comps in the submarket. Don't repeat the same message with different wording.
• Keep it short. Follow-up emails should be shorter than your initial outreach, not longer. Two to four sentences is often enough. The prospect already has context - you don't need to re-pitch the whole thing.
• Make it easy to respond. End each email with one clear, low-friction ask. "Worth a quick call this week?" is more likely to get a yes than "Would you be open to exploring how a partnership might be mutually beneficial?"

A Proven CRE Follow-Up Sequence Structure

Here's a four-touch sequence structure that works for most CRE prospecting scenarios - whether you're targeting building owners, corporate tenants, or investors.

Email 1 - Initial Outreach (Day 1)

Your best, most personalized email. Reference the specific property, submarket, or situation. Lead with something about them, not about you. State your value clearly and make a simple ask: a 15-minute call, a quick conversation, a yes/no on whether this is the right time.

Keep it under 150 words if possible. Long emails signal "sales blast" - short ones feel like a real person reaching out.

Email 2 - Value Add Follow-Up (Day 4–5)

Brief. Acknowledge the prior email in one line, then pivot to something new. This could be:

• A recent transaction or lease comp in their submarket that's relevant to their situation
• A market trend that affects their asset class (rising vacancy, tightening supply, etc.)
• A specific tenant or buyer actively looking that you're representing

Close with the same simple ask. This email's job is to give the prospect a new reason to respond, not just remind them you exist.

Email 3 - Angle Shift (Day 10–12)

If you haven't heard back, try a completely different angle. If your first two emails were about an opportunity you have (tenant looking for space, buyer seeking assets), try a different hook: a genuine question about their plans for the property, a market insight specific to their situation, or an off-market opportunity you're working with.

This is also where you can experiment with a slightly different format - a one-question email, for example ("Do you have any lease expirations coming up in the next 18 months?") can get responses when a more traditional pitch hasn't.

Email 4 - The Last Touch (Day 18–21)

Keep this short and honest. Acknowledge that you've reached out a few times and haven't connected. Express that you'll leave them alone after this - but keep the door open. Something like: "I don't want to keep filling your inbox. If the timing isn't right, I understand completely - but if anything ever changes with [the property / your space needs / your portfolio], I'd love to be the first call."

This final email often generates responses precisely because it closes the loop. Prospects who felt guilty for not responding finally do - either to say "not now but maybe later" or to actually engage.

Timing and Spacing

The exact timing matters less than the spacing. You want enough distance between emails that you don't feel aggressive, but close enough together that you maintain momentum. For most CRE prospecting sequences, this works well:

• Day 1: Initial email
• Day 4–5: First follow-up
• Day 10–12: Second follow-up
• Day 18–21: Final touch

Avoid sending follow-ups on Mondays (inboxes are already crowded) or Fridays (people are mentally checked out). Tuesday through Thursday tends to produce the best response rates for most outreach.

Personalization in Follow-Up

Follow-up emails don't need to be as heavily personalized as your initial outreach - but they shouldn't feel like a template either. At minimum, reference something specific to the prospect: the property address, their submarket, a detail from a prior interaction, or a piece of news that's relevant to their situation.

The challenge is doing this at scale. If you're running sequences to 200 prospects simultaneously, manually personalizing every follow-up isn't realistic. This is where AI-powered outreach platforms earn their keep - tools like MogulAim can inject property-specific and market-specific variables into every email in a sequence automatically, so your follow-ups feel personal even when they're part of a larger campaign.

Handling Responses

When a prospect does respond, move fast. The window between "I'm curious" and "I forgot I even emailed you" is short. Here's how to handle the most common responses:

"Not interested right now"

Don't push. Reply graciously, thank them for responding, and ask if you can follow up in six months. Then actually do it - put a reminder in your CRM. The owners who aren't ready today are often the ones who call you in 18 months.

"Tell me more"

Move the conversation to a call as quickly as possible. Don't try to conduct a full pitch via email. Send two or three time options and ask which works best for them.

No response after all four emails

Add them to a long-term nurture track - a monthly or quarterly email with a market update, a relevant transaction, or a brief check-in. You've done your acute prospecting; now you're playing a longer game.

What to Track

For every sequence you run, track these metrics:

• Open rate by email number: Are later emails in your sequence still being opened? If open rates drop sharply after email 2, your subject lines may be the problem.
• Reply rate by email number: Which touch generates the most replies? For most brokers, it's not the first email.
• Positive reply rate: Of your replies, how many are genuinely interested vs. asking to be removed?
• Meetings booked per sequence: The ultimate measure - how many conversations does running a full four-touch sequence generate per 100 prospects?

The sequence that books the most meetings isn't necessarily the cleverest one - it's the one you run consistently and iterate on based on real data.

Building Your Sequence Library

Over time, develop specific sequences for specific prospecting scenarios:

• Building owner cold outreach (tenant rep angle)
• Building owner cold outreach (investment sales angle)
• Corporate tenant outreach (lease expiration trigger)
• Investor outreach (acquisition opportunity)
• Post-transaction follow-up (you just closed something nearby)

Each scenario calls for different language, different hooks, and a different value proposition. A well-built sequence library means you never start from a blank page - you adapt and deploy the right framework for each campaign.

The Bottom Line

A CRE follow-up email sequence is not about persistence for its own sake - it's about staying present with the right prospects until the timing aligns. Four well-crafted, appropriately spaced emails that add value at each step will outperform a dozen generic "just following up" nudges every time.

Build the sequence. Run it consistently. Track what works. Iterate. That's the compounding advantage that separates brokers who generate consistent pipeline from those who are always chasing the next deal from scratch.

Ready to automate your CRE follow-up sequences without losing the personal touch? Try MogulAim free and see how AI-powered sequencing can keep you top-of-mind with every prospect in your pipeline.