How Two Denver Agents Built Their Entire Business on Instagram Stories
- Jerad Larkin
- 6 hours ago
- 9 min read
How do real estate agents actually get clients from Instagram? By posting Stories consistently, showing real life instead of closings, and engaging back. Both agents on this panel built most of their pipeline that way, with no cold calling and no door knocking.
I hosted a panel at our Unfiltered event in Denver with two agents I get asked about constantly. When I sit down with an agent and we open their phone to look at who they follow, these two names come up over and over.
What I did not expect was how blunt they would be about the cost of it. One of them told the room she threw up that morning because she has real social anxiety. The other told the room he has never made a single outgoing call or knocked a single door in his life. Both are doing serious volume.
I am not a real estate agent. I sell title insurance for Chicago Title of Colorado, so I watch this market from a seat right next to yours. Here is the full conversation, and the written version underneath if you would rather read it.
What this video covers
Why Instagram Stories, not Reels, are where relationships and deals actually start
The daily posting rhythm both agents run, and what happens the week they stop
How to build a business on social when in-person networking is not your thing
What social media actually costs, from free to full production
How to turn a Story poll into a list of local business owners worth knowing
What to do when someone messages you and they already have an agent
Why Stories beat Reels for getting clients
This was the strongest point of the night, and it cuts against what most agents assume.
Reels are the discovery tool. They put you in front of people who have never heard of you. That is a real job and it matters. But discovery is not the same as connection, and connection is what turns into a signed listing agreement.
Stories are where the connection happens. As Gerard put it on stage, "stories never die." They disappear in 24 hours, but the relationship they build does not.
The mechanics are simple:
Reels get you found. Someone scrolls, sees you, follows.
Stories get you known. That same person now sees you every day, in normal life, being a normal person.
DMs get you hired. By the time they reach out, they already decided.
Elise described walking into a listing appointment where the seller already knew her. No warm-up, no proving herself, no explaining her process. That part was already finished. The client knew what they were getting before she walked in the door.
That is the whole return on the work. You are not posting for likes. You are posting so the sales conversation is half over before it starts.
The posting rhythm: 5 to 8 Stories a day
Gerard posts five to eight Stories a day. Every day. Weekends included. More when something is actually going on.
That number surprised the room, so let me reframe it before you decide it is impossible. He is not producing five to eight pieces of content a day. He is documenting a day he was already having. The coffee, the listing, the restaurant, the yard work at a property, the person he ran into.
The daily part matters more than the volume. Elise was direct about it: the minute she stops, her momentum slows. She called it a monster she created, and she meant it as a description of how the algorithm and human memory both work. Attention decays fast. Daily presence keeps you from starting over every week.
If five to eight feels out of reach, start here:
Post one Story a day for two weeks. One. Do not negotiate with yourself about whether it is interesting enough.
Add a second when the first becomes automatic. Usually around week three.
Stop planning and start noticing. Both of them described the same shift. After a while you stop hunting for content and start seeing it. Something happens in your day and you think, that is a Story.
Protect the streak on bad days. A boring Story posted beats a great Story skipped.
Nobody cares about your closings
This got the biggest laugh of the night and it is the most useful correction in the whole video.
Agents post closing photos because other agents react to them. Gerard was blunt: he does not care about closings, we all see them constantly. The general public does not know what your numbers mean. They have no frame of reference for how many units somebody closed this month.
What they do respond to is anything they recognize from their own life.
Elise pointed at Gerard getting genuinely worked up about doing the yard work himself at his listings. People see that and think, I need to do that at my house. That is a connection. A closing photo is not.
Things worth posting that most agents skip:
Where you eat and why you keep going back
A neighborhood you are spending time in and what is changing about it
Something you are annoyed about that other locals are also annoyed about
The unglamorous part of the job, the part between the contract and the keys
People you are supporting, by name, because you actually mean it
The rule underneath all of it is to be the same person online that you are in the room. Elise put a hard edge on it: if you are one person on Instagram and a different person in real life, it will not work.
The free lead gen system already on your phone
This was the most tactical five minutes of the panel, and almost nobody in the room was doing it.
Elise walks through it like this. You are out somewhere in Denver. You post a Story with a poll or a question about something local, something people have an actual opinion about. Then you do the part everyone skips.
You go through the people who responded.
Post a Story with a poll or question box. Make it local and easy to answer.
Open the response list. Every person who tapped is sitting right there.
Follow them back. Especially the ones you do not recognize.
Look for the business owners. Local business owners are the highest-value follows in your entire feed.
Comment on their stuff, tag them, show up. Not once. Regularly.
It costs nothing. The list is generated for you, by people who just raised their hand. Most agents post the poll, glance at the percentage, and close the app.
Gerard runs a broader version of the same idea. He spends real time every morning liking, commenting, and supporting other people’s content. He called it the most important thing in social media, and I agree with him. Engagement is not the tax you pay to post. It is the actual work.
What it actually costs
I asked both of them about the raw deal, and the answer was honest in both directions.
To start: nothing. The camera in your pocket is already good enough. No ads, no equipment, no editor. Clean the lens and shoot. Both of them made a point of this because agents use budget as the reason not to start.
The algorithm prefers the cheap version. Raw self-shot footage tends to outperform heavily produced content. Both of them have access to polished production and still shoot most of it themselves.
Full production is a different conversation. Scheduled content shoots, listing videos, and a real edited pipeline runs roughly $2,000 to $5,000 a month.
The real cost is time and consistency. That is the part nobody puts a number on. Dry eyes, phone fatigue, and the discipline to keep going on days you do not feel like it.
Start free. Stay free for a while. Only add production once the habit exists, because production will not save an inconsistent account.
When they message you and they already have an agent
This comes up constantly for both of them, and Elise’s answer is one every agent in Colorado should hear.
People message her saying they are thinking of selling, they have followed her for a couple of years, they already have an agent, but they would like to hear what she has to say.
She does not walk into that appointment planning to take the listing. Her first questions are what is wrong with the property, or what is wrong with the client’s expectations. Not what the other agent did wrong.
In a market where homes are harder to move, sellers start calling around. That is not automatically an agent problem. It is often a pricing problem, a condition problem, or an expectation problem, and the agent is catching blame for physics.
Her position, and I would underline it: we need each other. Be supportive of the community. Understand what is actually happening before you take something from someone.
The exception she named just as clearly is when the agent genuinely did not take care of their client. Then you should step in, because that is the reputation all of us carry.
That balance is the whole thing. Do not be a vulture, do not be a doormat.
About the panel
Elise Losasso leads the Losasso Group at The Agency and closed $54 million in volume last year, which puts her in the top 1,000 agents in the country. Roughly half of her business comes from Instagram, where about 50,000 people follow her content. She built it in public, and she built it in spite of social anxiety, not because she does not have any.
Gerard Langhuoth is with Guide Real Estate and measures his business in relationships rather than followers. He is the name every agent, lender, and title rep in Denver seems to know. He has spent about three and a half years pushing hard on social after years of being this way naturally, and he runs on one motto: activity creates activity.
Your first 24 hours
If you want one thing to do today, both of them landed in the same place from opposite directions.
If you are a people person like Gerard: get out, support your community, then post the Story about it. The relationships come first and the content documents them.
If in-person drains you the way it does Elise: start behind the camera. Talk to the lens, cast a wide net, and let it work while you sleep. Just be the real version of yourself when you do.
Either way: camera on yourself, talking. Both of them confirmed those Stories outperform everything else.
Then post it. Not the polished version. Not after you fix your hair or find better lighting. Gerard’s closing line to the room was simply to put yourself out there and post the Story.
FAQ
How many Instagram Stories should a real estate agent post per day?
Five to eight per day is what a top Denver agent on this panel actually does, every day including weekends. If that is not realistic yet, start with one a day and build. Consistency matters more than volume, and the daily habit is what protects your momentum.
Do Reels or Stories work better for real estate agents?
They do different jobs. Reels get you discovered by people who do not know you. Stories build familiarity with people who already follow you, and that familiarity is what turns into messages and listing appointments. You want both, but Stories are where the relationship gets built.
Can you build a real estate business on social media if you are introverted?
Yes. One of the two agents on this panel has significant social anxiety and built roughly half of a $54 million business through Instagram specifically because it let her connect without working a room. Being on camera and being outgoing in person are two different skills.
How much does it cost for a real estate agent to market on social media?
Starting costs nothing. Your phone camera is good enough, and raw self-shot footage often performs better than polished production. Full content production with scheduled shoots and listing videos runs roughly $2,000 to $5,000 per month, but that only makes sense after the habit exists.
What should a real estate agent post about besides listings and closings?
Everyday life your local audience recognizes: restaurants you go back to, neighborhoods you are spending time in, the unglamorous side of the job, and local business owners you genuinely support. Closing photos mostly get engagement from other agents, not from future clients.
Want more like this
I run classes, workshops, and panels like this one across Denver Metro all year, and the goal is always the same. You walk out with something you can use that week.
Subscribe to my weekly emails for real estate marketing ideas, AI tools, and invites to upcoming classes and events across Colorado:
And when it is time to close, my team at Chicago Title of Colorado is who I would put on your file. Marketing gets you the listing. A clean closing is what makes the client send you the next one.
Jerad Larkin
The Mile High Title Guy
Chicago Title of Colorado
303.630.9430 | Info@MileHighTitleGuy.com
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