What To Include In an Expired Listing Packet

The most successful real estate agents understand the value of daily prospecting. And, as we’ve said countless times in this blog, most prospecting agents focus on expired listings as a huge source of potential revenue.

But top agents also know that expireds represent a unique challenge. Having failed to sell, homeowners are likely frustrated. They may also be reluctant to jump back in with a new agent.

If you’re a Vulcan7 client, you have access to the best-expired listing data in the business. If you’re not a Vulcan7 client, you owe it to yourself to learn more about our BEST-IN-CLASS expired and FSBO data. Having the best data gives you a tremendous competitive edge. But the best data alone can’t win the day. Expired listings are hot commodities and it won’t be long before those homeowners feel overwhelmed fending off well-intentioned agents.

For the purpose of this post, we’re going to assume that your Vulcan7 data, coupled with your relentless prospecting efforts and effective use of real estate scripts, did its job, and garnered you a listing appointment with the homeowner. You’ve crossed a critical sales threshold by getting your foot in the door.

The challenge now is: how do you make a strong, first impression? The obvious place to start is with a compelling, well-organized, and professional information packet/presentation that lays out how you would address the homeowner’s concerns.

Here are a few of the basics to add to your packet:

General observation

Open by sharing your perspective about the property and the things you believe would be most attractive to buyers. This may sound obvious, but be careful not to be critical of the previous agent.

A SHORT bio

You don’t want to drone on about yourself. Briefly list the notable transactions you’ve closed in the recent past, especially if any of those homes had similar characteristics to those of your prospect’s home.

Pricing philosophy

Have a clear, point-of-view on the previous pricing strategy and how you would handle pricing moving forward.

Marketing strategy 

Walk the homeowner through your philosophy and approach to marketing and provide examples of what you’ve done to sell other homes. In particular, show them how you use social media to help get the word out

Client services

Real estate agents often get the rap for being poor communicators, especially during the listing process. The homeowner should know your philosophy on responding to calls or emails. If you promise to return a call within a certain period, be sure you stick to that promise.

Added value

How do you add value to the listing relationship? Would you hire a professional stager? Would you provide professional photography to bring the home to life? Would you pay for a pre-inspection to give the homeowner comfort in knowing what might come up during the sales process?

Testimonials

Share what other clients have to say about your performance.

Be Sure To Make It Visually Engaging

Importantly, be sure that your information packet and presentation are visually engaging. Don’t present page after page of words. People remember images far more than they remember words. Learn how to tell a compelling story. Use engaging images and color to bring your presentation to life. If you don’t have an assistant to help design your listing packet, hire a graphic designer to create a template that you can use for all of your packets moving forward.  CANVA is also a user-friendly, graphic-design program. Or, explore an online “gig” site such as FIVERR to create your visuals.

Expired listings represent an excellent opportunity to build profitable transactions. But it’s important to remember that those homeowners have already been “sold” by another agent. Nobody likes to admit failure. Use your information packet to establish yourself as a partner who can be trusted the next time around.

Doug Spak

Doug Spak has over four decades of experience as an advertising copywriter, agency creative director, blogger, and content creator. He joined Vulcan7 as a Content Specialist in 2016. In addition to ongoing website copy refreshes, Doug has produced over 300 blog posts while developing content for Vulcan7’s social media platforms.