I've recently been planning a new strategy for farming for new listings. I feel that I have a good plan of attack and wanted to see what many of you thought about it.

In my local MLS there is a neat feature that I can use to run reports on the local market to see certain statistics of the market's activity. I want to run reports to find the highest demand segment of the market such as homes with a certain number of bedrooms and bathrooms in a specific area in a specific price range.

Once I have that segment narrowed down I would build a list of those particular properties from the county auditors records. Then I would go through those specific properties in the county recorders records to find the ones that have a higher estimated amount of equity and then cross check them on the MLS to make sure they are not active listings.

Finally, when I have my "final" list done I would mail letters to the owners explaining that their home is in high demand compared to the rest of the market and if they are interested in listing their home for sale to contact me.

What do you think? Anything I should do differently or anything I'm overlooking? Do you think I may have a pretty low response rate since I'm not specifically targetting motivated sellers? All opinions welcome.

I don't know what market you are in, but if it's a large one, I would just use the same concept, only applying it specifically to the expireds. And if you do, you should look into RedX software, as it will save you hours, if not days, in doing all the cross checking and gathering of information for you.

I do pretty much the same process with expireds right now but I don't work in large enough of a market to supply a constant stream of high quality expireds. By high quality I mean high demand homes with equity.

I would suggest targeting "perfect" or "ideal" clients. That is to say target property owners of expensive homes so you get a higher rate of return for each hour invested (not just homes that are in high demand). I would then have a very clear marketing campaign consisting of regular communication that are (1) meaningful to the prospective client and (2) indicates your experience, professionalism, and desire to "earn" their business. Be different, be persistent, be professional and be sincere.

Why target listings that aren't selling? I have tons of multimillion dollar properties in my area, but only a handful sell every month. Whereas, maybe a thousand homes under $350K sell each month. Which one would you target? Take the listings that will sell!!!!!!

as a user of the redx i would suggest pulling every expired from the last 2 years that has not sold.....call every one of them and keep running through the list. i run my entire business based on expireds and i can tell you that it works. you can run your business on expireds and withdrawns!

I believe the flaw in your plan is many of those properties with equity WILL NOT want to lose a bunch of that equity to sell in a down market.

I have friends now that had 350k equity and now with down market have 200k equity. Could they sell if they wanted to? Sure but they have a fixed rate loan of 4.95 percent they locked in years ago at the exact right time. They have NO INTEREST in moving.

Also we use to market to properties with perceived equity years ago and found many had second's,third's,and heloc's that were not recorded or simply didn't show up in tax records like the first mortgage did. Also the properties can have judegments,mechanic's liens,tax lien's etc. that gobble up the equity. So I wouldn't use equity as THE determining factor in wanting to sell.

Now you are on the right track as far as what sells. If 80 percent of mls sales in your area are 3 bed 2 bath on 1 acre and 1,300 sq ft for 130,000 then that is what you need to target. You can have 100 listings of properties nobody wants to buy and if you don't get to closing you won't get paid.


You can also reverse this and target ad campaigns to buyers looking in that high demand range.I would work the expired's and also converting the fsbo's.

Thanks for the great responses!


Since we're on the topic of expireds I noticed something strange about my local MLS when it comes to expireds. I'm not sure if this is something that is pretty common or not.

It seems that the MLS doesn't show a listing as being expired until 3 days after it's actual expiration date. For example, if I had a listing expire today(2/4) it wouldn't show up as expired in the MLS until Sunday(2/7). I guess it's some kind of grace period given to the listing agent to give them extra time to get the listing extended. Is this done in your areas?

I'd be interested to know if RedX would show a listing as expired on it's actual expiration date. If it did, that would give me a huge advantage over my competition!



You're right super. The owner's motivation to sell was the one aspect of my plan that I was worried about. I thought that if any of the owners I contacted were even thinking of selling at all and I contacted them telling them that their home was in high demand that may just influence them to actually sell now. And guess who they would probably call? Hopefully me...

Also, sometimes people have to sell for one reason or another whether they like it or not. So, at least a small percentage of the owners I'd be targetting would need to sell for some reason regardless.

Looking forward to more input from those who use redx. And although the seller might not be ready to sell NOW, keeping them in your database to maintain contact can pay off eventually. Overall it seems like a good plan.

RedX would not help with the 'grace period' or lag that you speak of. You should go to the site and watch the videos, but the data that RedX uses is what you give it by exporting from the MLS into CSV files and then uploading into the dashboard (RolEDX).

As far as people not wanting to sell in a down market, go check out David Knox's materials showing the benefit of moving UP in a down market. It's simple math....

I checked with RedX and they don't work with my local MLS unfortunately.

I am well aware of people moving up in a down market. I say it day in and day out to sellers who ask "what do I do".

I explain that if they sell now they will lose a little or break even but will make a huge return on the upside. However if they wait they will then be in a sellers market and when they sell will break even or have a little profit but make next to nothing on the purchasing end.

In my mind if you can do it with the low interest rates now you are an idiot if you don't sell and capitalize on this market. Now can you find distress in and upmarket? Sure you can but it is very hard to find as now there is an abundance of it.

At the end of the day I can make the case over and over why sellers should do something but ultimately it is their choice.

Some that don't want to bring cash to closing I have told to rent out until the market returns and then go ahead and buy another place to cash in on today's prices. The sellers worry about nightmare tenants but I tell them to offer a little below market rent to attract the best tenants and deposits and then stick a property management company in there. Then when the market rebounds they can capitalize on selling and get out from under that property while still preserving great credit.


Of course sellers want options that are from 4 years ago and I have to reel them in and say you have option 1,2,3 in this market. Option A doesn't exist so either get real and make a choice or stick your head in the sand and do nothing.