Updated: July 2026
The biggest thank you an agent can receive is a referral, but how do you inspire your clients to make the referral? We talked about a few ways in this blog post, but today we’re talking about the idea of empathy maps. Empathy maps are a great way to get inside the mind of your buyer or seller, and then cater to their specific needs.
What is an Empathy Map?
An empathy map is a visual framework that helps you build out a real estate buyer persona (or seller persona) by organizing what you know about a client. You’ll spend some time considering their thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and needs, so you can tailor your communication, especially real estate email marketing personalization, to what actually matters to them. This is a great exercise to generalize the needs of your typical audience, as well as get into the nitty gritty of what your clients look like on an individual basis, especially as the market is changing along with your clients wants, needs and fears.
The 6 Sections of a Real Estate Empathy Map
Your typical empathy map has six main sections:
- Think & Feel
- See
- Hear
- Say & Do
- Pains
- Wants
Once you’ve figured out the first four, it should be pretty easy to deduce their pains and wants. Here’s what each one means.
Think & Feel
The “think & feel” section is where you’ll note your clients major preoccupations, worries and aspirations, as well as just their general thoughts and feelings. For example, a seller may be thinking to themselves, “I hope my house doesn’t sit on the market too long.”, giving you the opportunity to showcase your plan for marketing their listing and ease their worries.
See, Hear, Say & Do
The “see” section is where you’ll note what your client sees in the environment around them, or in the market or online. For example, a buyer might see the listing up the road, so it’s up to you to make it clear what your listing is bringing to the table that the other one isn’t.
The “hear” section is going to be for noting what outside influences have to say to your client, and potentially what a buyer is hearing while they view a property of yours. This could look like the fence door that makes a slamming noise when it’s windy (time to mention how thick the walls are!), or the ice cream truck that comes by every day at 2 on the dot (just like your idyllic family neighborhood). An outside influence may not be one you physically hear, but it could be the mom that seems to be CC’d on every correspondence, signaling you to keep the mom in the loop and as happy as possible.
The “say & do” section is for noting a client’s actions or things they say that may be of value to you. For example, a client looks towards their significant other before making any major decisions, so now you know who the likely decision maker is. Alternatively, if they say they have a big dog, it’s likely they’d appreciate a bigger yard, and they’ll definitely appreciate your remembering Fido if you mention him later as you show them the big, grassy yard.
Pains & Wants
The “pains” and “wants” sections get at the heart of real estate client needs: what are your client’s pain points, and what do they actually want? Their pains are going to be their fears, frustrations or any obstacles they may face in their home buying/selling journey. In this pandemic age, a very real fear is wondering what the real estate market is going to look like in the coming months. A great way to prove your knowledge and your value is sending over a projected market analysis like this one, as well as a marketing plan to demonstrate how you plan to be successful in selling their listing. Similarly, their wants are going to be their wants/needs, as well as their measurement of success. For a seller, success will likely be selling their home in a timely manner, while for a buyer, success will look different depending on their needs; finding a house with a big yard that’s close to a highly-regarded public school is a good example. Some other wants/needs may look like a master bedroom on the main floor (their fear being not being able to safely make it up the stairs in a few years), or an extra room for a home office.
How To Apply Empathy Mapping To Your Strategy
This exercise is a core part of any real estate marketing strategy for agents, especially as buyers and sellers develop new wants, needs, and fears with the changing market. Here’s how to put it into practice, in four simple steps:
- Pick one client, ideally one whose situation is familiar. Think of someone whose situation you see often: another first-time buyer stretching for their max budget, another empty-nester ready to downsize, another family that keeps mentioning school districts. You’re not building a case study on one person, you’re using them as a stand-in for a real estate buyer persona you deal with all the time, so whatever you map here can guide how you talk to the next five people just like them.
- Fill in the six sections. Jot down quick notes for think & feel, see, hear, and say & do. Don’t overthink it. A sentence or two per section is plenty.
- Translate each note into a pain or a want. Go back through what you wrote and ask, “does this point to a fear or a goal?” A worry about days on market becomes a pain. A mention of a home office becomes a want. If a note doesn’t clearly point to one or the other, leave it out, it’s probably just noise.
- Build a reusable outreach template from one pain or want. Pick the single most pressing one and turn it into something you can use again, not just for this client, but for the next few people like them. For example, if their pain is “worried the house will sit on the market,” build a short email template that leads with a projected market analysis and a clear pricing strategy, something you can send to any seller with that same fear. If their want is “a yard big enough for the dog,” build a listing description template that calls out yard size and outdoor space by default, something you’ll reuse every time that want shows up again.
So what are you waiting for? Print out this free template and start mapping today! Once you understand what your clients need, tools like rezora make it easy to deliver the right message to the right person.
FAQ
Do I need special software to build an empathy map?
No special tools required. This free template gives you the six sections already laid out, so you can fill it in by hand or digitally, whatever you’ll actually use. The format matters less than the habit of doing/reviewing it before a big conversation or listing appointment.
Once I build a map, do I update it or start fresh each time?
Think of each map as tied to a client type, not a single moment in time. Revisit it whenever that client type’s needs shift, for example, if market conditions change what first-time buyers are worried about. Update the map rather than starting over. A quick check-in every quarter or so is usually enough.
Do I need one empathy map, or one for every kind of client?
One per common client type is the sweet spot. Most agents find they’re regularly working with two or three recurring types, maybe a first-time buyer, a downsizer, and a relocation client. Building a map for each gives you a small, reusable library instead of one map that tries to cover everyone.
What if I can’t tell whether something belongs in “pains” or “wants”?
If a note doesn’t clearly point to a fear or a goal after a second look, it’s fine to leave it out. Not every observation earns a spot on the map, and skipping the unclear ones keeps your pains and wants list sharp enough to actually act on.
Is this a solo exercise, or should my team be involved?
Both work. Solo agents can use it to prep for a specific client or sharpen their sense of a recurring client type. Teams and brokerages often get even more out of it as a shared exercise, since it gets everyone using the same language when they talk about buyer personas and messaging.
