Hey there, Cam Dunlap here.
On our last Dealmaker webinar, a student named Louise asked me about a house she spotted on her local MLS in Pennsylvania. It’s been sitting for over 150 days. The photos online still show snow on the ground — in July. They’re asking $205,000, and she wants to offer $105,000 because of all the work it needs.
Her real question was bigger than that one house, though. It was about expired listings — and whether you can go around the realtor to talk to the seller directly.
Buckle up, because this is one of my favorite subjects. Expired listings are one of the most overlooked lead sources in the business, and right now the market is producing them faster than anybody can work them.
Why Expired Listings Are Such Powerful Leads
Think about the psychology here. A seller lists their house today. The typical listing agreement runs 180 days. Six months later, the house hasn’t sold and the listing expires.
Is that seller more eager to sell than the day they signed the listing? You bet they are. They may be unhappy with their realtor. They may be talking to another realtor. They may have decided they don’t like realtors at all.
Realtors know this so they themselves chase expired listings hard. They figure the seller will want to relist with somebody new. But here’s the thing: they’re chasing the listing. You’re chasing the deal. You’re not competing for or offering the same thing at all.
The Market Is Producing Expired Listings Faster Than Ever
This is why the timing matters so much right now. Listings across the country are going stale. This spring, tens of thousands of listings were expiring every single week nationally, and more than half of all active listings have been sitting on the market for 60 days or longer.
Every one of those aging listings is a seller watching their plan fall apart in slow motion. Day 90. Day 120. Day 150. The motivation is building the whole time, just like Louise’s snow-photo house in Pennsylvania.
The longer it’s been on the market, the sooner it’s going to expire — and the more motivated that seller is likely to be.
Two Words That Keep You Out of Trouble: Procuring Cause
Now, before you go calling every seller with a listed house, you need to understand something called procuring cause.
If I’m driving down the road and I spot a junker with a realtor’s sign in the yard, the only reason I know that house is for sale is the sign. The realtor is the procuring cause. Same thing if I found it thumbing through Zillow — the realtor earned their place in that deal.
But if I’m working my data and I call an owner with no idea the house is even listed? The data was the procuring cause, not the realtor. That distinction is what it comes down to if a realtor ever gets a bee in their bonnet about a deal you did after their listing expired.
And a word of caution: realtors right now are like grapes left on the vine — and I’m in grape country here, so I know what that looks like. Most of them are barely eking out a living. If you go mess with their money, they’re going to be extra prickly, and they may have all the time and energy they need to get really mad. Be careful and do it right.
When I Wait — and When I Call the Realtor Myself
So what do I actually do when I reach a seller and find out the house is listed?
I tell them the truth: “Your realtor almost certainly has an exclusive right to sell. If you and I cut them out, they’re going to be mad at you and probably demand a commission anyway. When does your listing expire?” If it’s 30 days out, I say, “Why don’t I put a note in my calendar to call you 32 days from now, and we’ll have another conversation.”
But sometimes waiting kills the deal. Say the seller has a foreclosure sale date five weeks away and the listing doesn’t expire until November. The deal will expire before the listing does. In that case, I contact the realtor and make my offer through them. I don’t care about them earning a commission — the seller pays it anyway.
And when I do work with a realtor, I’m as easy to work with as I can possibly be. I want them looking forward to the next deal with me. Meanwhile, I’m delegating as much of the work to them as is reasonable — while someone else pays them to do it. There’s some magic to that.
The One-Bedroom That Was Two Walls Away From a Payday
Here’s the part of Louise’s question I loved most. That Pennsylvania house is listed as a one-bedroom because somebody took the walls down.
My great friend Rob down in South Florida — the guy who first taught me what wholesaling even was — once told me between racquetball games that he’d just bought a VA foreclosure I had skipped over because it too was listed as a one-bedroom. I teased him: “What kind of an idiot buys a one-bedroom, one-bath house?”
His answer: “Did you go look at it? You probably should have because it’s two walls and two doors away from being a three-bedroom, one-bath house. And I bought it for eighteen grand.”
He still doesn’t let me live that down. A mismarketed house is a castout in a sea of listings nobody wants. Who wants a one-bedroom? Nobody — and that’s exactly why you do. Aging listing plus mismarketed property is a double dose of opportunity, and the crowd will walk right past both.
Go Find the Listings Everyone Else Gave Up On
Expired listings, pre-foreclosures, stale and mismarketed houses — it all starts with knowing which sellers have a reason to talk to you. That’s exactly what the Real Estate Data Feed puts in front of you: motivated seller data nationwide, so on your next call the data is the procuring cause. There’s a 100% risk-free test drive available, so you can see what’s sitting in your market right now.
Remember: the more offers you make, the more money you make. Say it to yourself five or ten times a day until it sticks.
Regards,
Cam Dunlap