It’s Expired Season: Why Older Expireds and FSBOs Are the Most Overlooked Opportunity Right Now

Expired listing counts have been climbing steadily since 2023, and the trend isn’t slowing down. Sean Farr from LandVoice walked through exactly why this moment is different, how older expireds specifically create a unique opportunity, and the scripts and follow-up systems that turn this into consistent listing business.

Yes, There Are Expireds in Your Market

A common misconception: “there aren’t any expireds where I am.” That belief usually comes from having worked through an unusually hot market cycle (2006-2007, or 2021 during the pandemic surge) when almost everything sold immediately. Those periods were the exception, not the rule.

The current numbers tell a different story:

• 2024: averaging over 220,000 expireds, withdrawals, and cancellations nationally, per month
• 2025: closer to a quarter million per month
• Current trend: 280,000-300,000 per month, and still climbing

Florida, Texas, and California are worth watching particularly closely right now, not just because they have the most agents and residents, but because a specific problem is emerging: homeowners who bought at peak pricing in the last 3-4 years are now trying to sell into a declining market, often facing the reality of a short sale rather than a straightforward transaction. This is a meaningfully different (and more sensitive) conversation than a typical expired listing call.

The Older Expired Advantage

Here’s the specific niche worth paying attention to: expireds that are 30, 60, or even 90+ days out, not the ones everyone else is already flooding on day one.

Why this works: most agents are excellent at the first contact (day one, maybe day three or five) and genuinely weak at long-term follow-up (day 30, day 60). A seller who expired weeks ago has typically already fielded a wave of calls immediately after expiring. By the time an agent reaches out 60+ days later, that seller isn’t fielding ten calls a day anymore, they’re often in a calmer, more receptive state, and the conversation feels different because it is different.

This is especially powerful in higher-end or luxury markets, where sellers often cycle through several agents before finally landing with the right one at the right (usually more realistic) price. Building expertise specifically in this later-stage conversation, understanding what these sellers are feeling by that point, was a direct part of breaking into a luxury market: pairing older expired outreach with buyer-side online leads created listings on one side and buyer opportunities on the other, reinforcing each other.

The Script That Actually Opens the Conversation

A blunt approach (“Your home didn’t sell, what happened?”) tends to create instant friction, especially with more analytical or direct personality types, since it can come across as accusatory.

A better approach, framed as options rather than an accusation:

“Hey, this is [Name] from [Brokerage]. I know your home expired a couple of months ago, I’m sure you took a hundred calls about it. I typically find that when a home doesn’t sell, it’s one of three things: the home didn’t show well, the agent didn’t market it effectively, or it was a pricing issue. Which of those three do you think it was for you and your home?

Then stop talking. The goal is to let the seller self-identify the issue rather than being told what went wrong, which builds rapport far faster than stating a diagnosis outright.

Building a Real 60-Day Follow-Up System

Relying purely on phone calls is limiting, especially given how much outreach now falls under Do Not Call registry restrictions. A more resilient system layers multiple touchpoints:

• Handwritten cards (available in a few clicks through most expired/FSBO data platforms) sent at multiple intervals, not just once.
• Door visits, especially for properties within a reasonable, realistic radius. Being honest about geography matters here: a listing 30 minutes away is unlikely to get a genuine day-60 drive-by follow-up, while one near a regular coffee stop absolutely will.
• Email and social outreach, including direct messages where appropriate.
• A Meta custom audience campaign: export the list of expired/FSBO contacts (with emails), upload it into Meta as a custom audience, and run a low-budget ($2-10/day) video ad speaking directly to what these sellers are going through. Over time, this creates a compounding effect: a homeowner sees a face repeatedly on social media, receives a handwritten card, and then has an agent show up at the door. That combination builds recognition and trust well before any actual sales conversation happens.

Always ensure any list has been scrubbed against both the federal Do Not Call registry and applicable state-level registries before calling.

Why FSBOs Deserve Attention Too (Outside California)

FSBO volume nationally remains strong through spring, summer, and into early fall (California being a notable exception where FSBO activity is generally lower). A few data points worth using directly in conversation:

• The average FSBO sells for around $360,000, compared to $425,000 for a comparable home listed on the MLS, a roughly 15% gap in value.
• 17% of FSBOs report anxiety about pricing their home correctly.
• 13% worry about selling within their required timeframe.
• Up to 36% are anxious about managing contracts, disclosures, and legal paperwork.

Combined, these represent well over half of FSBOs experiencing some form of real anxiety about the process, anxiety that maps directly to the specific ways an agent can add value. Rather than stating these facts outright, the more effective approach is asking questions that let the seller arrive at the same concerns themselves, then addressing pricing, timeline, and paperwork complexity as natural, earned talking points rather than a sales pitch.

A related differentiator worth using with buyers as well: access to off-market inventory (expireds, FSBOs, pre-foreclosures) alongside standard MLS access positions an agent as having a genuinely broader view of available property than someone who can only show what’s actively listed

A Quick, Practical AI Use Case

Once the three core FSBO pain points (pricing, timeline, paperwork) are identified, a simple one-to-two page branded PDF built with AI tools (covering those three concerns directly, plus the 15% pricing gap statistic) becomes a reusable asset across every touchpoint, mailers, door visits, and follow-up emails alike, without having to reinvent messaging each time.

Get Started With LandVoice

There’s a special link available for accessing expired, FSBO, and pre-foreclosure data at a lower cost than many comparable services:

👉 Get Access Through LandVoice

Key Takeaways

• Expired counts are climbing nationally (280,000-300,000+ per month) and show no sign of slowing.
• Older expireds (30-90+ days) are an underused niche. Most agents are strong on day one and weak on day 60, which is exactly the gap to fill.
• Frame the opening conversation as options, not accusations. Let the seller self-identify what went wrong.
• Layer follow-up across channels: calls, handwritten cards, door visits, and Meta retargeting ads all reinforce each other over time.
• Always scrub contact lists against Do Not Call registries before calling.
• FSBOs sell for roughly 15% less on average than MLS-listed homes, a genuinely useful data point in conversation.
• Pricing anxiety, timeline concerns, and paperwork complexity are the three biggest FSBO pain points, and the most natural entry points for a real conversation.

Next Steps

Pull a list of expireds in your market from 60-90+ days ago, the ones everyone else has already stopped calling, and test the three-option script on just five of them this week.

• Watch the full YouTube Webinar Replay here
• Get Access Through LandVoice