Expired listings are the most contested seller leads in real estate. The MLS drops them at midnight, and by 7 a.m. the homeowner’s phone is buzzing with calls from every prospecting agent in the market. By Friday, they’re screening unknown numbers. By the following week, they think every agent in town is a vulture.
The agents who win this category are not the agents who call the most. They’re the agents who:
- Show up with value first.
- Stay in front of the seller longer than everyone else.
- Sound like a human, not a script.
Here’s the system we install.
Why expireds are worth the effort
Three reasons.
They’re motivated. A homeowner whose listing just expired wanted to move. Something didn’t work. They haven’t given up — they’re frustrated.
They’re high-equity opportunities. Most expireds have lived in the home for years and have substantial equity, which means a transaction is real and the commission math works.
The competition is loud, not skilled. Most of the agents working expireds are running a one-day SMS blast and a cold call. If you’re patient and useful, you stand out fast.
The 90-day sequence
Day 0 — Daily MLS pull
Every morning at 7 a.m., the system pulls every expired and withdrawn listing in your target zip codes from the MLS. The data flows directly into your CRM with the property address, list price history, days on market, last broker, and any other public fields that matter.
The system also de-duplicates: if a seller relisted, expired again, or pulled the listing twice, you don’t get the same record three times.
Day 1 — First SMS
Sent mid-morning, before lunch. Not at 7 a.m.
Hi [first name] — I noticed your home at [address] came off the market yesterday. No pitch — I’m just curious if you’re still planning to sell or if you’ve decided to stay put. Either answer is totally fine.
A few notes:
- It uses their address. Public record. Not creepy if you don’t pretend you don’t know it.
- It explicitly says “no pitch.” Pattern-breaks the expected aggressive opener.
- It gives them two acceptable answers. Reduces the pressure to defend themselves.
- It’s compliant. Sellers whose phone numbers are in MLS or public records can typically be contacted under standard agent-prospecting rules, but you must honor STOP immediately and respect any Do Not Call registrations per your local regulations.
Day 1 — First email
Sent 4 hours after the SMS. Contains:
- A free CMA offer, but framed as “even if you decide not to sell, you might want to know what’s happening in your neighborhood.”
- One recent sale on their street or block, with the actual sold price.
- A short paragraph in your voice — three to five sentences max — about what you do and don’t do.
Day 3 — Hand-addressed direct mail
Triggered through a print API in the snapshot. A real postcard with:
- A handwriting font on the address (not Comic Sans — a good one).
- A short note: “Saw your home came off the market. Wanted to put a real piece of paper in your hands instead of just another text message. If you want a no-strings conversation, my number’s on the back.”
- Your face on the back. Sellers buy from agents, not from logos.
Day 7 — Video email
Short — under 90 seconds — recorded in your car or office. Use a video tool that embeds a thumbnail in the email. The subject line includes their address (“Quick thought on 412 Cedar Ave”), which dramatically increases open rate.
What to cover: one specific observation about their listing. The photos were dark. The price was 8% above recent comps. The listing description didn’t mention the school district. Don’t trash the prior agent. Just notice.
Days 14, 30, 60, 90 — Drip continues
Each touch in this sequence has a different angle:
- Day 14 — Neighborhood market update with a specific stat about their zip code.
- Day 30 — “Here’s what I’ve seen change in the last month for homes in your range” — short, useful, no ask.
- Day 60 — Case study format: “I worked with a seller in a similar situation last spring — here’s what we tried.” Doesn’t have to be your client specifically; it has to be plausibly relevant.
- Day 90 — Direct ask: “If you’re still thinking about selling, I’d love 15 minutes to walk you through what I’d do differently.”
Anyone who replies at any point gets immediately pulled out of the automation and dropped onto your personal task list. Bots don’t have conversations. You do.
What separates the winning copy
We’ve watched a lot of expired sequences. Three things consistently distinguish the ones that work:
1. The first message admits they’ve been getting hammered.
I know your phone has been ringing nonstop since yesterday. I’ll keep this brief.
That single line, in our testing, lifts response rates noticeably. It signals self-awareness and respect.
2. The pitch is never the first thing.
Three to four touches in before you suggest a meeting. By the time you ask for the meeting, you’ve earned the ask.
3. You don’t bash the prior agent.
Tempting. Don’t. Sellers chose that agent. Criticizing them is criticizing the seller’s judgment, and the seller knows it.
Compliance and Fair Housing notes
A few non-negotiables built into the snapshot:
- TCPA + STOP suppression. If a seller replies STOP, opts out, or asks you to stop contacting them, the system immediately removes them from every channel — SMS, email, mail, future workflows.
- Do Not Call lists. The system flags numbers on the federal DNC registry. You’re responsible for verifying your local rules, but the flag is there.
- Fair Housing. All template copy is reviewed to avoid any language that could be construed as steering, source-of-income discrimination, or any protected-class reference. Don’t reference neighborhoods using demographic shorthand. Reference them by name, school district, or proximity to amenities — and only when the seller raised those topics.
When to abandon the sequence
If a seller hasn’t engaged at all by day 90, the automation drops them into long-tail nurture: one touch every quarter, value-only, no ask. You’ll be surprised how many of these come back six, twelve, or eighteen months later. The home didn’t sell because the seller wasn’t actually ready. When they’re ready, they remember the agent who didn’t pester them.
What’s actually happening behind the system
There are three things this workflow is doing that an agent on their own usually can’t:
- Showing up on day 1 with a personalized, multichannel touch. Most agents only do one channel.
- Following up for 90 days, even when the agent has a closing or a slow week. Most agents give up after 2 weeks.
- Surfacing replies the moment they happen. A seller who replies on day 47 doesn’t get lost in your inbox.
The Real Estate Snapshot ships with this entire sequence preconfigured. The MLS connector, the print API, the SMS templates, the video email integration — all of it.
It takes about 10 setup hours to map to your specific market. After that, it runs by itself, and your job becomes the part that has always been the job: showing up for the conversation when someone is ready to have it.