November 3, 2026 · 7 min read
Five Past Client Touches to Send Before December 31: A Checklist
A thank-you, an anniversary note, one useful thing, a holiday card and a one-question note for the new year. Five short past client touches, with wording, timing and a worked six-agent schedule.
A team should send past clients five touches before December 31: a thank-you in Thanksgiving week, a closing anniversary note, one useful thing in early December, a holiday card with a handwritten line, and a one-question note between December 28 and 31. Each is short, tied to the client's actual home, and asks for nothing.
Most teams do one of two things in December. They send one holiday blast to the whole database, or they send nothing because everyone is busy closing the year. The blast is forgotten by lunch. The silence costs more, because past clients are home in December, thinking about the house and next year.
The free Past Client Outreach Prompt drafts messages one person at a time from what the agent remembers about each home. This checklist puts the same method on a calendar, so a team leader knows what goes out in which week.
By the numbers: why past clients get December
NAR's 2026 Member Profile found that the typical member earned 28% of their business from past clients and customers, up from 20% the year before. That is the share of income coming from people the agent has already worked with.
Three more figures come from NAR's 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers:
62% of buyers had already recommended their agent within a year of purchase.
65% of sellers had recommended their agent at least once in the year since selling.
51% of recent sellers used the same agent to represent them when buying a home as when selling.
Read them together. Past clients refer within months, and about half of sellers used one agent for both a purchase and a sale. A past client who has not heard from the agent in eleven months is easy to forget at the moment a friend asks for a name.
The five touches
Each touch has a purpose, a window, a channel and a sample. Brackets mark where the agent fills in something true. If the agent does not remember the detail, the sentence comes out. A wrong detail is worse than none.
Touch 1: The thank-you (Thanksgiving week)
Purpose. Say thanks. That is the whole point.
Channel. A text or a handwritten card. Email is the weakest option for this one.
Says. "Hi [first name], it's [agent]. Thanksgiving week always gets me listing who I'm grateful for, and you trusting me with the house on [street] is on it. Hope the table is full. No reason for this note beyond that."
Leaves out. Buying, selling, referrals and the market.
Touch 2: The closing anniversary (the week of the date, late November or December)
Purpose. Show someone remembers the date.
Channel. Whatever the client uses to talk to the agent.
Says. "It was [number] years this month that you got the keys on [street]. How is the house treating you? Anything you have been meaning to fix or change?"
Leaves out. A pitch. The question about the house is the message.
If closings were spread evenly through the year, about one in six past clients closed in November or December and gets this touch. Send it a week apart from touch 1, never on the same day.
Touch 3: One useful thing (first two weeks of December)
Purpose. Give the client something they can use.
Channel. Email or text, with the useful thing in the message itself.
Says. Pick one of three, and send it to everyone:
The name of a plumber, roofer or cleaner the agent has used and would use again, in the agent's own words.
A short winter checklist for a home: gutters, outdoor faucets, the heating filter, the dryer vent.
A reminder to keep closing documents with year-end paperwork and to ask a tax professional what applies. The agent gives the nudge, not tax advice.
Touch 4: The holiday card with a handwritten line (December 14 to 18)
Purpose. The expected greeting, made personal.
Channel. A printed card signed by the agent, or a 20-second video from the agent's own phone.
Says. The printed greeting, then in the agent's hand: "[First name], hope [specific thing about their year or home] is going well. Happy new year."
Leaves out. Business-card inserts and the words "for all your real estate needs."
Mail takes days in December, which is why the window closes the 18th.
Touch 5: The one-question note (December 28 to 31)
Purpose. Open next year's conversation while the client is thinking about next year.
Channel. A text. A short one.
Says. "Happy new year, [first name]. Quick question, no pressure: anything planned for the house or a move this year? Either way, I'm one text away."
Optional line for longer-term owners. "If you would like a rough read on what your home would sell for today, I will put one together. No strings."
Leaves out. Predictions about next year's market or prices.
The answers matter more than the message. Anyone who says "maybe the kitchen" gets a CRM tag and a call in the first two weeks of January.
A worked schedule for a six-agent team
A made-up team with round numbers, so you can swap in your own: six agents, 40 past clients each. The minutes per message are our assumptions.
Week of November 9. The team lead or operations person exports the past client list from the CRM, split by agent, with closing month and street for each. Agents correct it and add a detail they remember, about an hour each.
Monday to Wednesday of Thanksgiving week. Touch 1. Forty texts or cards per agent at about three minutes each is two hours.
First two weeks of December. Touch 2 goes to the roughly seven clients per agent with an anniversary, at about five minutes each. Touch 3 goes to all 40 at about two minutes each, since the useful thing is written once.
December 14 to 18. Touch 4. Forty cards at about three minutes each for the handwritten line, two hours. Operations addresses and stamps them.
December 28 to 31. Touch 5. Forty texts at about two minutes each.
Early January. Calls to everyone who answered with a plan.
Add it up: roughly seven hours per agent across six weeks, about an hour a week once the list is clean.
The team lead's job is small. Keep one shared sheet with a column per touch, and look at it for ten minutes every Monday. A touch not sent by the end of its window is dropped, not rolled forward, because two messages in one week is how a thank-you turns into a blast.
Rules every one of the five follows
Describe the home and the plan, never the person. First name, street, the year of the closing, what they said they meant to do. Nothing about who they are or their family. That keeps the messages true and fair housing safe.
No market statistics, no predictions. A year-end note is not a market report. If a client asks how the market is, that is a call.
No referral ask. Per the NAR figures above, most buyers and sellers had already recommended their agent within a year. The ask spoils the thank-you.
Send from the agent, not the office. The text comes from the agent's own number, and the reply comes back to the agent.
Run the swap test. If the message would work for someone else with the name changed, add a detail or cut the sentence.
For a longer rhythm, see our post on the 36-touch system for a sphere of influence.
How Urban Marketing Edge handles this
We build year-end contact into the monthly plan so it is not a December scramble. The monthly content themes put the thank-you and the holiday greeting on the calendar early, the email and newsletter work carries the useful-thing content for touch 3 in the office voice, and the weekly meeting is where the team lead checks the sheet. Agents request card designs through the dashboard, and one person approves them. The personal lines and the texts stay with the agents. The free Past Client Outreach Prompt covers the Monday hour for an agent working alone. Plans are month to month, billed in advance, no setup fees, and you can compare them on the plans page.
Questions brokers ask
When should a real estate team send year-end messages to past clients?
Start in Thanksgiving week and finish between December 28 and 31. That is five touches over about six weeks, each in its own window. Mail the holiday card by December 18 so it arrives in time.
Should a year-end message ask for a referral?
No. The touches are about staying remembered. NAR's 2025 Profile found 62% of buyers had already recommended their agent within a year of buying, so a thank-you does not need to carry the ask. An ask in a thank-you cheapens it.
What should a closing anniversary message say?
The number of years, the street, and one question about the house, such as how it is treating them. Under 40 words, no pitch, no link.
Should the year-end touches ask for a review?
No. Reviews work best right after a closing, while the experience is fresh. A December request from a client who closed in March competes with the thank-you.
How many past clients should one agent contact this way?
As many as they can write to with real attention. In our example, 40 clients is about seven hours across six weeks. An agent with 200 should do the last three years of closings by hand and send the rest the team newsletter.
Book a 30-minute strategy call
Bring your past client count and your December plans to a call. We map the simplest plan for your content, themes and monthly cadence, and say plainly which pieces your team can handle alone. No pitch deck, no pressure. Book a 30-minute strategy call, or look at how we work with team leaders first.
