The Complete Guide to CRE Cold Email Outreach (That Actually Gets Responses)

Most commercial real estate cold emails get deleted in under three seconds. The subject line feels generic, the first sentence is about the broker, and the ask is either too big or too vague. The irony? Cold email is one of the highest-ROI prospecting channels available to CRE brokers — when it's done right.

This guide breaks down exactly how to run commercial real estate cold email outreach that generates real conversations: how to build your list, write emails that earn replies, structure follow-up sequences, and scale without losing the personal touch that closes deals.

Why Cold Email Still Works in Commercial Real Estate

CRE is a relationship business, but relationships have to start somewhere. Cold email gives you a scalable, low-cost way to get in front of building owners, tenants with upcoming lease expirations, and investors looking for their next acquisition — before your competition does.

Unlike cold calling, email respects the recipient's time. A well-crafted message lands in their inbox when they're ready to read it. Unlike LinkedIn DMs, email feels more professional and direct. And unlike mailers, you get real-time data: open rates, click rates, and reply rates that tell you exactly what's working.

The brokers who dismiss cold email usually tried it once, got a 1% reply rate, and moved on. The ones who master it treat it like a system — not a one-time experiment.

Building a Targeted Prospect List

The quality of your cold email campaign starts with your list. Sending to the wrong people guarantees failure regardless of how good your copy is. Here's how top brokers build lists that convert:

• Lead with a clear thesis. Are you targeting office building owners in a specific submarket? Retail tenants whose leases expire in the next 18 months? Industrial occupiers in a specific square footage range? Get specific before you pull a single contact.
• Use property data sources. CoStar, REIS, and county assessor records give you ownership data. Cross-reference with your target property criteria — building class, size, occupancy, ownership entity type — to filter down to real prospects.
• Find the decision-maker, not the building. Reaching the LLC that owns a property is useless if you can't identify the principal behind it. Tools like ZoomInfo, PitchBook, and even LinkedIn can help you connect LLCs to actual humans.
• Verify emails before sending. Bounce rates above 5% hurt your domain reputation. Use an email verification tool before launching any campaign.

A list of 200 highly targeted, verified contacts will outperform a spray-and-pray list of 2,000 every time.

Writing Cold Emails That Get Replies

The anatomy of a high-performing CRE cold email is simple: a subject line that earns the open, a first line that earns the read, a value statement that earns the reply, and a clear, low-friction call to action.

Subject Lines

The goal is curiosity, relevance, or specificity — not cleverness. Subject lines that reference the recipient's actual property, market, or situation outperform generic ones by a wide margin. Try formats like:

• "Quick question about [Property Address]"
• "Tenant activity near [Building Name]"
• "[Submarket] lease comps — worth a look?"

The Opening Line

Never open with "My name is [X] and I'm a broker at [Firm]." That's about you. Open with something about them — a recent transaction in their area, a market trend affecting their asset class, or a specific observation about their property. Show that you did your homework.

The Value Statement

One to two sentences. What do you actually offer that's relevant to this person right now? Be specific. "I've closed four transactions in your submarket in the past six months and have a tenant actively looking for 15,000–25,000 SF" beats "I specialize in your market and would love to connect."

The Ask

Make it easy to say yes. "Are you open to a 15-minute call this week?" is better than "Would you be interested in exploring a potential partnership?" Don't ask for a listing or a commitment. Ask for a conversation.

Follow-Up: Where Deals Actually Come From

First emails rarely close deals. Most replies come from the second, third, or fourth touchpoint. The key is spacing and variety — don't send the same email five times with slightly different wording.

A solid CRE cold email sequence looks like this:

1. Day 1: Initial outreach — your best, most personalized email
2. Day 4: Brief follow-up — reference your first email, add one new piece of value (a market data point, a relevant transaction, a question)
3. Day 9: Angle shift — try a different hook: a tenant looking for space, a recent sale comp, an off-market opportunity
4. Day 16: Last attempt — keep it short, acknowledge it's your final follow-up, leave the door open

Persistence signals professionalism when done right. The goal isn't to annoy — it's to stay present until the timing is right. Many deals start because a broker followed up at exactly the moment an owner was ready to have a conversation.

Personalization at Scale

The most common objection to cold email is "it feels impersonal." That's a cop-out — or it was before modern tools made personalization scalable.

You don't need to write 200 custom emails from scratch. You need a strong base template with dynamic variables that inject property-specific, market-specific, or recipient-specific details automatically. When an email references someone's actual building address, the submarket they're in, and a relevant transaction nearby, it doesn't feel like a blast — it feels like you did your homework.

The brokers winning with cold email today are running personalized sequences at volume. They're not choosing between quality and quantity — they've figured out how to do both.

Measuring What Matters

Track these metrics for every campaign:

• Open rate: Below 30% usually means your subject lines need work or your list is stale
• Reply rate: 5–10% is solid for cold CRE outreach; above 15% means you've found a winning angle
• Positive reply rate: Distinguish between "remove me from your list" and "yes, let's talk" — only the latter matters
• Meetings booked per 100 emails: The ultimate metric — how many conversations does your campaign actually generate?

Test one variable at a time: subject lines, opening sentences, value propositions, CTAs. Over time, you'll develop a playbook that reliably generates meetings from cold outreach.

The Bottom Line

Cold email in commercial real estate isn't about sending more — it's about sending smarter. A targeted list, a compelling message, a persistent follow-up sequence, and data-driven iteration will put you in front of more decision-makers than cold calling, door-knocking, and networking events combined.

The brokers who figure this out first in their market have a real competitive advantage. The ones who ignore it cede that ground to whoever does.

Tools like MogulAim automate this entire process — from building targeted prospect lists to personalizing every email and managing multi-touch follow-up sequences. If you're serious about scaling your CRE outreach, it's the fastest way to go from sporadic prospecting to a consistent pipeline engine.