Negative Keywords for Real Estate Google Ads: Stop Paying for Renters and Job Seekers

15 August 2026·5 min read

Quick answer: A chunk of your appraisal campaign spend is going to renters, job hunters, and people who just want to know what next door sold for. The fix isn't a smarter bid strategy — it's a categorised negative keyword list, built once and topped up monthly from the search terms report. Below: a starter list across five intent categories, plus the process for keeping it current. 📈

Most agencies treat negative keywords as a set-and-forget task — done at launch, never opened again. That's the biggest reason cost-per-lead creeps up quietly over a year while nobody can explain why. Your appraisal campaign isn't just competing for seller attention — it's soaking up renters, curious neighbours, and job hunters, and every one of those clicks costs exactly the same as a genuine enquiry. I love 💖 a client who says 'our leads have dried up' when the real problem is a negative list nobody's touched since launch — it's one of the cheapest fixes in paid ads.

What most agencies get wrong

An agency builds a solid keyword list and a handful of obvious negatives — 'free', 'jobs', maybe 'rent' — at setup, then never reopens the search terms report again. Google's matching drifts broader over time, and new categories of junk traffic creep in.

The second mistake is one flat negative list instead of a category system. Forty terms dumped together hides the pattern — a whole new leak can open, like a rival agent's name picking up volume, without anyone noticing.

The biggest one: agencies watch cost-per-click and conversion rate, but almost nobody reads the search terms report line by line — the report most skip because it's tedious, not because it's unimportant.

Starter negative keyword list (by intent category)

Rental intent: houses for rent, rental properties, [suburb] rental, for rent, tenancy application, bond, rental inspection times, share house

Employment intent: real estate agent jobs, careers, how to become a real estate agent, real estate agent salary, real estate traineeship

DIY / curiosity intent: how much is my house worth free, house value estimator, how to sell my house myself, for sale by owner, what did my neighbour sell for

Competitor / agent-name intent: [named competing agent] reviews, [competing agency] complaints, [agent's full name] contact

Wrong-suburb intent: every suburb bordering your service area you don't actually appraise in, plus your city/region name used without a serviced suburb attached

Monthly process

1. Export the search terms report for the last 30 days, sorted by clicks.
2. Match terms to the categories above and add them as phrase match negatives to a shared exclusion list.
3. Leave ambiguous terms one more month before excluding.
4. Check for a competitor or agent name gaining volume — the leak most agencies miss.
5. Log what you added, so next month builds on this one.

Boutique single-suburb agency: On roughly $3,000 a month for appraisal leads, a search terms pull showed 18% of clicks over 90 days were rental terms, none ever converting. A rental exclusion block brought cost-per-lead from around $87 to $61 in six weeks, no bid changes.

Multi-suburb franchise office: Their nine-suburb campaign showed a steady cluster of clicks on 'real estate agent jobs' and licensing terms — people clicked because the ad mentioned 'local experts', not a valuation. Employment negatives cut wasted spend by roughly 12% of the monthly budget.

Independent agency vs. a national franchise brand: A well-known local competing agent was searched thousands of times a month for reviews, and broad-match keywords were catching a slice of that traffic. Adding his name plus 'reviews' and 'complaints' closed a leak the raw numbers never flagged.

How it actually works

Negatives sit at campaign or account level. One appraisal campaign only needs campaign-level negatives; run several and build a shared list in the library so one fix protects the whole account. For match type, use phrase match for most categories above — it catches reordered and plural variants that exact match misses — and reserve exact match for precise terms like a competitor's name.

Run the report weekly for the first month to clear the backlog, then settle into monthly. Twenty minutes done consistently beats a thorough clean-up nobody repeats.

💡 Negative keywords fix waste, not weak targeting. If your ad copy doesn't clearly say 'free appraisal', curiosity clicks keep coming — no negative list filters intent your offer never stated. Over-blocking, like whole suburb names, can quietly choke off genuine seller volume too. Track reach lost alongside spend saved.

Mistakes to avoid

Only reviewing negatives at setup: matching drifts broader every month, so a six-month-old list is already stale.
Defaulting to exact match for everything: misses the plural and reordered variants people actually type.
Negativing single generic words: blocking 'house' outright can knock out legitimate seller searches too.
Blocking suburb names alone: pair them with rental or job qualifiers instead, or you'll cut genuine sellers.
One flat list, no categories: hides which leak is growing and whether the fix is a negative or new ad copy.

Frequently asked questions

How many negative keywords should an appraisal campaign have?

No fixed number worth chasing — a healthy starter list from the categories above is usually 60 to 120 terms, growing slowly as the search terms report surfaces new patterns.

Will negative keywords guarantee a lower cost-per-lead?

No — it depends how much irrelevant traffic your account currently attracts. A tightly targeted account might see a small improvement; one untouched for a year often sees more. Negatives reduce waste, they don't fix weak keywords or a poor landing page underneath.

How often should I check the search terms report?

Weekly for the first month to clear the backlog, then monthly as an ongoing habit — put it on the same calendar reminder as your bid or budget review, so it doesn't quietly slip like it did before.