Real estate letters
Expired listing letter examples
An expired listing letter is written to somebody who has just had a public failure. They have been through a campaign, spent money on it, had strangers through the house most weekends, and it did not sell. Every other agent in the suburb is writing to them this week, and almost all of those letters open by implying the last agent was no good.
Written by Autopen Australia · Updated
Straightforward, without blaming the last agent
Hello,
[ADDRESS] came off the market last month after a full campaign. That is a frustrating outcome and it usually has one or two causes rather than ten.
I have looked at how it was presented and what else was selling in [SUBURB] at the time, and I think I can tell you specifically what happened. I am happy to do that whether or not you ever list with me, because you will need to know it before you go again.
Twenty minutes, at your place or on the phone.
[AGENT NAME], [MOBILE]
Where the problem was obviously the price
Say it. The owner already suspects it and is waiting for somebody to be honest rather than tactful.
Hello,
[ADDRESS] was on at [PRICE] and did not sell. Two comparable homes in [SUBURB] sold in the same period at lower figures.
That is not a criticism of the campaign. It is the single most common reason a good property does not move, and it is fixable without doing anything else differently.
If you want to go again and would like a realistic range before you do, I will put one in writing for you.
[AGENT NAME], [MOBILE]
Offering something that is not a listing presentation
Hello,
You will have had a number of letters since [ADDRESS] came off the market, all of them asking for the listing.
This one is not. If you are planning to relist in autumn, the useful work happens now: what to fix, what not to bother with, and what the realistic range will be by then. I will go through that with you and you can decide in [MONTH] who runs it.
[AGENT NAME], [MOBILE]
Getting it right
- What to mention. Acknowledgement that the campaign did not work, without blaming anyone for it. One concrete thing you would do differently. An offer that does not require them to commit to another campaign immediately.
- What to leave out. Criticising the previous agent, which insults the owner’s judgement in choosing them. "I noticed your property failed to sell" as an opener. Any suggestion you have a buyer, unless you do and can name the circumstances.
- How long. 80 to 130 words. This is the one letter in real estate that is allowed to be longer, because the owner is actively deciding what to do next and is reading properly.
- How personal. Direct and unembarrassed. Owners in this position find sympathy patronising and prefer somebody who treats it as a solvable problem.
- When not to send one. In the first week. The owner is still talking to their original agent about an extension, and a letter that arrives on day three reads as circling.
Personalising more than a handful
The fields that earn their place here: [ADDRESS], [SUBURB], [PRICE], [MONTH], [FIRST NAME].
Check that the listing has genuinely expired and not simply been withdrawn for a fortnight. A letter about a failed campaign arriving at a house that is still on the market is the worst possible first impression, and it happens whenever a list is pulled from stale portal data.
Before any run, read the piece with the longest value in your data, the shortest, and the empty one. If all three read as English the merge is sound. Personalising direct mail at scale covers the rest.
Sending these at volume
Expired listings arrive in a trickle rather than a batch, which is exactly the pattern that defeats a manual process: three letters this week, none next week, eleven the week after.
Autopen Australia writes each piece individually with a real ballpoint, personalises every piece from your list, written into the sentence rather than dropped into a gap and hand-addresses the envelopes.
Writing to expireds as they come up? Ask about small recurring runs
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Writing more of these than you have evenings
Tell us roughly how many and what they say. We will come back with an exact price and a production window.