# A win-back plan for the listing that expired and the agent who ghosted them

> Expired sellers are not hostile. They are embarrassed and let down. Approach them as the person who explains what happened and you will not need a script.

Growth and Retention · 2026-10-05 · 5 min read

An expired listing is a house that did not sell and a seller who has spent months being disappointed. By the time the listing comes off, they have usually had one honest conversation with their agent in the last sixty days, and it was probably the one where nobody said much at all.

Then their phone starts ringing. Twenty agents in three days, all with the same energy, all implicitly saying the last agent was bad and I am good. It is exhausting and it is why most of them stop answering. The opportunity here is not a better script. It is being the only person who does not sound like the other nineteen.

## What the seller is actually feeling

Get this right and everything else follows. They are not primarily angry. They are embarrassed. The house did not sell, and in their head that is at least partly a verdict on their home, their judgment, or their price.

Underneath that is the thing nobody addressed. They still do not know why it did not sell. Their agent stopped explaining somewhere around week six, and the silence let them build their own theory, which is usually wrong and usually harsher than reality.

> They do not need another agent telling them what to do. They need someone to tell them what happened. Nobody has.

## Do the work before you make contact

This is the step that separates you from the volume dialers, and it takes about fifteen minutes per listing. Pull the listing history and actually look at it.

- **The price history.** Where it started, when it dropped, how much, and whether the drops chased the market down or led it.
- **The photos.** Look at them the way a buyer on a phone would. Count them. Notice what is missing, what is dark, what raises a question the set does not answer.
- **The description.** Read it. Note whether it addressed the obvious objection or pretended it did not exist.
- **Days on market versus the neighborhood.** Was it slow for the area or was the whole area slow? These are completely different problems and most sellers cannot tell them apart.
- **What sold instead.** Which comparable homes did sell during that window, and at what price. This is usually the single most clarifying fact you can offer.

By the end of fifteen minutes you will have a real opinion about what happened. Often it is price, but not always, and even when it is price you now know by how much and against what.

## The first contact: lead with the explanation, not the ask

Everyone else opens with some version of I noticed your home did not sell and I would love to talk about how I can help. It signals a pitch in the first sentence and the seller has heard it four times today.

Open with the observation instead. Something in the shape of: I looked at your listing history this morning. I have a theory about what happened, and it is not what you probably think. Happy to tell you either way, whether or not you ever list again.

That works because it offers something before it asks for anything, and because it addresses the actual open question in their head. It is also true, which matters, because you will have to back it up in the next sentence.

## Never criticize the previous agent

The temptation is enormous, especially when the previous agent genuinely did a poor job. Resist it completely. It is unprofessional, and more practically, it does not work.

The seller chose that agent. Attacking the choice attacks their judgment, and they will defend it even when they agree with you. Talk about the house, the market, and the pricing decisions, never about the person. If they criticize the previous agent themselves, do not join in. Say something neutral and move back to the property.

## The follow up nobody else does

Most agents contact an expired seller aggressively for about a week and then vanish. That is the actual opportunity. Many of these sellers relist within a few months, often with the second or third person who was still around.

So plan a ninety-day arc rather than a seven-day sprint. Weekly for the first two weeks, then every two or three weeks with something genuinely useful: a comparable home that just sold nearby, a note about what inventory is doing in their price band, a short thought about timing. No pitch attached.

The same discipline that makes [a 90-day nurture track](/blog/90-day-nurture-track-for-not-ready-leads) work applies here, and if the seller has gone completely quiet, [re-engaging the buyer who went quiet](/blog/re-engaging-the-buyer-who-went-quiet) has the shape of the message that restarts a conversation.

## When they say they are taking a break

Many will say they are done for now, they will try again in the spring, they are staying put. Take it at face value and say something like: makes sense. I will send you what sells nearby every month or so, no pitch, and you can call me whenever, or never.

Then actually do that. The agent who sends four useful notes over five months and never once asks for the listing is the agent who gets the call in April. That is the entire strategy, and almost nobody has the patience for it.

## The win-back sheet

One sheet per expired listing. Fifteen minutes of homework, then a ninety-day arc instead of a week of pressure.

```expired-winback.txt
ADDRESS: ______________  EXPIRED: ______

HOMEWORK (15 min, BEFORE any contact)
  started at $______ -> ended at $______
  price drops: ____ (dates: ____________)
  photo count ____   dark/missing: ____________
  description addressed the obvious flaw?  Y / N
  days on market ____ vs neighborhood avg ____
  what DID sell nearby: ____________ $______

MY THEORY IN ONE SENTENCE
  ______________________________________________

FIRST CONTACT  (offer before ask)
  "Looked at your listing history this morning. I have a
   theory about what happened and it's probably not what
   you think. Happy to tell you either way, whether or
   not you ever list again."

THE ARC  (90 days, not 7)
  wk 1  call + the theory
  wk 2  call at a different time of day
  wk 4  a comparable that just sold nearby, no ask
  wk 7  inventory in their price band, no ask
  wk 10 short note on timing, no ask
  wk 13 check in. still no pressure.

NEVER  criticize the previous agent. not once. not even
       when they do it first.
```

_Fifteen minutes of homework buys you the one thing nobody else offers: an actual explanation._

Expired listings have a reputation for being brutal, and they are, for agents who call twenty of them with the same script. They are considerably less brutal for the one agent who did fifteen minutes of homework and led with something the seller actually wanted to know.

Pick two expired listings this week and do the homework before you touch the phone. Then hold the ninety-day arc, which is the hard part and the whole point. That is exactly the kind of long promise [Coachmark](/#how-it-works) keeps in front of you, surfacing week seven's touch on the day it is due.

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