This session was all about the price conversation with aged expired listings. More often than not, the pricing strategy is at least a factor in why a listing expired, and usually the biggest one. But I don't want to argue about whether it was priced right, and I'm not going to throw the last listing agent under the bus.
So I walked through how I lead with facts, showed real proposals I've used, and explained why I price on the brackets. Then I did what I called a magic trick: I pulled fresh aged expired data from my MLS live, scrubbed it, and started prospecting a brand new deck. I've left out every homeowner name, address and number from the calls.
Lead with the facts, not your opinion
When we get to price, I point to two things, whether we're meeting in person or virtually.
- What the MLS says right now. What's active, pending and recently sold that's comparable to their home. That might be their neighborhood or subdivision, or in a rural area, similar homes within about a mile. I share it without my opinion and let them come to their own conclusions.
- Preliminary offer options from institutional buyers. That's a fact too, and it gives everyone more context for the pricing.
One of the most important sales principles in my experience: "State the facts and tell the truth and where possible leave your opinion out of the matter." At some point you may need to share your opinion to help decide. But you lead with the data. "The data doesn't lie." Once they see it, it becomes something we're working out together.
Real proposals you can model
I showed the original proposal that helped me win an aged expired listing back in the spring. They were interviewing other agents. I recorded a Loom video walking through the facts, then used AI to turn that into a pricing recommendation and marketing plan. I also showed a newer, more polished one page version I'm building with more advanced AI tools.
I shared one more example from a two unit investment property. The owner emailed me saying he was interviewing agents. I sent him the MLS comps and a four part marketing plan in a personalized Loom video, and he hired me without interviewing anyone else.
Every one of these proposals is in a Google Drive folder inside our free Skool community. Each one covers two things: pricing based on the real data in the market, and your plan to solve their problem and get the home sold.
Price on the brackets
"I think the idea of pricing a property at 424,900 is foolish and outdated." "We're not fooling the general consumer anymore."
Instead of 499,900, list it at 500,000. Now you show up for everyone searching up to 500,000 and everyone searching 500,000 and up. I think in brackets of 25,000: 425, 450, 475, 500. When I explain this, most sellers tell me they hadn't thought of it that way.
Their price, their choice
I will make a recommendation, but I'm emphatic that the final price is their call. It's their property and their investment. I also tell them the truth: "Regardless of the price you choose or we choose collaboratively, nothing will change what we do."
At the same time, "it is inarguable that the price we set has the largest outsized impact on the amount of people that see the property." More people seeing it means more showing requests, and more showings means more chances at offers.
The key is giving your reasons. If you just say you think it should be priced at a number, you might get pushback. But "if you give them a reason and logic, usually they will comply."
The magic trick: building a deck for a pocket buyer
The day before, a buyer I'd talked with in the past reached back out. I got her criteria, set her up in the MLS and sent her what was available. But "I am not an agent that treats the MLS like a slot machine." She's a pocket buyer, ready, willing and able to make an offer. That gives me the perfect reason to call aged expireds and ask if they're still accepting offers.
Here's how I built the list, following the MLS filter cheat sheet in our Skool community:
- Start with the geography, in her case a few school districts.
- Add her criteria: bedrooms, detached, not new construction, and her price range.
- Check expired and cancelled, going back 480 days.
- Export the standard report from the MLS.
- Run the file through the LeadDeck MLS checker, which is still in beta. It scrubbed the list down to the qualified opportunities.
- Import the candidates into LeadDeck with skip tracing and load the aged expired sequence.
A wide price range helps here. "She can only buy one. But she then becomes the reason for me to have conversations with people that will turn into clients and contracts beyond that."
Live prospecting the new deck
Then I started tapping my way through the new deck. Here's what that looked like:
- Voicemail: I asked if they were still accepting offers and said I'd follow up with a text.
- Wrong or disconnected numbers: I hid them so I never waste time on them again.
- Emails: I sent to every good looking address.
- Owner occupied: I added them to a direct mail sequence of a letter, a note card and a postcard.
- Hard to reach: I enhanced the skip trace, and on a couple of cards it turned up new numbers and emails.
I reached one owner who told me they'd taken the home off the market and weren't selling. That's fine. They have my info and my emails now, and if something changes, I want it to be me they call. "I either win or I learn."
When a number seemed tied to the property but wasn't the owner, I left a friendly message asking them to pass my info along. That's genuine, childlike curiosity. There's a reason that number is tied to the property.
Some of my best leads back when I started as a wholesaler were the owners whose postcards came back undeliverable. Most people stopped there. I leaned in. The people who are hardest to reach are often the best leads, because you may be the only one who tracked them down.
Lines in the water
In this game of go fish, sometimes a line sits in the water for days or weeks before you get a bite. That's why I recommend one hour a day, three to four days a week. Do that for a month and you'll spend the next month connecting the dots on the opportunities you created. "More conversations, more contracts, more closings."
Key takeaways
- Lead the price talk with MLS facts: active, pending and sold comps, plus institutional offer options.
- Leave your opinion out until it's needed, and let the seller reach their own conclusion.
- Price on the brackets, like 500,000 instead of 499,900, so more buyers see the home.
- Make a recommendation, but make it clear the final price is their choice.
- Use a pocket buyer as your reason to call aged expireds who fit their criteria.
- Lean in on hard to reach owners with email, an enhanced skip trace and direct mail.
Chapters
- 00:00 How I talk price with aged expireds
- 01:30 Why price is usually the reason it expired
- 02:00 Fact one: active, pending and sold comps
- 04:00 Fact two: institutional offer options
- 04:30 A real proposal that won an aged expired listing
- 08:30 A proposal for a two unit investment property
- 11:30 Price bracketing
- 13:00 Their price, their choice
- 15:30 The magic trick and my pocket buyer
- 19:00 Setting the MLS filters
- 21:30 Exporting and scrubbing the list
- 23:30 Loading the new deck
- 26:00 Questions from chat
- 27:30 Live prospecting starts
- 34:00 Why hard to reach owners can be the best leads
- 39:00 When an owner says they're not selling
- 48:30 The real estate game of go fish
- 52:00 Wrapping up and what's next