Killer Tips for Real Estate Agents to Turn Expired Listings Into Sold Properties

Expired listings are one of the best real estate lead sources. They are a goldmine for finding motivated sellers and creating powerful referrals.

The first step to converting expired listing leads is making contact with them. This can be done through a letter, email, or call. Here are some tips to make the most of your contact with expired sellers: 

Be Prepared

Aside from a tremendous expired listing letter, it is also essential to have a solid marketing presentation to offer homeowners who are ready to work with a new agent. Presenting an effective sales strategy and showing the seller how to sell their home quickly will inspire them to relist their property with you. This should include a portfolio of beautiful listing images, referrals, and sales metrics from past listings to prove you are the right agent for them.

Using a tool that can dial for you and send out email messages allows real estate agents to reach many more potential clients than they can on their own. This system also helps agents be more consistent with their prospecting, enabling them to build natural rapport with homeowners.

Many homeowners interested in working with a real estate agent will feel irritated and unheard of by receiving the same letter from multiple agents. This is why it’s essential to be prepared and offer a different marketing approach to make your contact stand out.

Be Creative

Expired real estate listings are an excellent opportunity for agents to find leads. Unlike most real estate leads, expired listing leads often come with highly motivated sellers ready to sell their homes. Moreover, the costs associated with contacting and nurturing these leads are much lower than that of other lead-generation strategies.

Real estate professionals often use specialized tools and platforms to enhance their lead generation efforts, like Vulcan7, a service designed to provide agents with comprehensive data and insights, maximizing their chances of connecting with potential clients and closing deals.

However, finding and targeting expired listing leads requires a unique and effective strategy that includes connecting with the homeowners, building rapport, and converting them into clients. This is possible by leveraging several methods, including cold calling, emailing, and direct mail.

One way to do this is by using a real estate prospecting platform, which automates the search and allows agents to find leads with ease and speed. This approach also eliminates the need to buy lists, making it more affordable for agents. Moreover, it ensures that agents get the best leads quickly and start nurturing them before anyone else does. This is an effective way to stand out from competitors and generate more business opportunities.

Be Concise

Real estate agents should be concise when contacting homeowners with expired listings. Since many of these property owners have already been burned by one or more previous listing agents, they may be wary of hearing from another agent, especially if the agent’s pitch sounds like studied sales voodoo.

Short expired listing letter templates can be effective, especially if they focus on offering value to the recipient. For instance, this expired listing letter template uses unconventional formatting to grab attention and engage readers, such as a large heading, informal language, and bold and italicized font. It also provides a wealth of information as a free resource that addresses some of the most common concerns of homeowner sellers.

Using an expired listing lead generation platform can help real estate agents quickly find quality passed listing leads and eliminate the need to scrape MLS data manually. The system sends agents qualified leads and automatically updates contact information so they can reach out to homeowners before competing real estate agents do.

Be Persistent

When a real estate listing expires, the owner is typically ready to work with another agent. However, finding and nurturing expired listings requires an effective 

lead-generation strategy and organized customer relationship management (CRM) processes.

One way to connect with expired property owners is through phone calls. However, this approach can be challenging since the seller may feel frustrated and skeptical of agents. To ensure your calls and emails are effective, prepare a script for your outreach and focus on providing valuable home-selling tips to the homeowners.

Alternatively, you can nurture expired listing leads through drip marketing. Unlike phone calls, emails require less effort but must still offer value to the homeowners. Consider sharing market and neighborhood reports, seasonal greetings, and case studies on how you’ve successfully sold similar properties. Then, ask the homeowner to relist their property with you. This will show that you’re dedicated and motivated to sell your home. Moreover, it will also help them restore their trust in you. After all, the last thing they want is to lose their property again.

Be Patient

Real estate agents may need help to connect with owners of expired listings. Typically, the sellers have been through many failed attempts to sell their homes and are already frustrated. They may not be receptive to your cold calls or emails, so it’s essential to follow up regularly in a way that does not come across as obnoxious or pushy.

It is also important to remember that expired listing leads are often emotionally attached to their homes and may be offended by you criticizing the property. Instead, focus on being helpful and providing the next steps for the seller. For example, if the seller needs to make some repairs or reduce their price, you can offer to assist them with these tasks.

Turning expired listings into sold properties is possible using the right tools and strategies. However, it takes time, patience, and commitment to find, secure, and present these listing opportunities. The key is consistently relying on your system and using it with these tips to maximize your success.