The Expired Listing Strategy for Fall: An August Outreach That Wins Listings

You work hard. You put in the hours. But when you look at your pipeline in late October and
it's thin, that is not a work ethic problem. It is a timing problem. You were not talking to the
right people in August.
Most agents treat August like a holding pattern. School is starting. Families are distracted.
The market feels like it is catching its breath. So agents slow down their outreach and tell
themselves they will ramp up after Labor Day. The agents who consistently build listing
pipelines do the opposite. They prospect harder in August so they can close more in October
and November.
This post is about one specific group of sellers worth your time right now: expired listings.
Not the ones that just came off the market last week. The ones that expired in the spring and
summer and have been sitting without a plan. Those sellers are still motivated. They still
need to move. They are just disappointed, frustrated, and not sure who to trust. That is your
opening.
Here is how to work expired listings in August in a way that actually starts conversations and
wins listings before your competition wakes up.
Why Expired Listings Belong in Your August Plan
When a listing expires, the seller does not stop wanting to sell. They stop believing it will
happen on their terms. They are frustrated with the process, possibly frustrated with their
last agent, and genuinely unsure what went wrong. That emotional state is important for you
to understand. You are not walking into a sales pitch. You are walking into a conversation
with someone who needs clarity.
August is the right time to approach sellers whose listings expired in April, May, or June.
Why? Because the emotional temperature has dropped. They are no longer in the raw,
reactive stage. They have had time to think. Fall is coming and they know it. If they want to
be in a new home before the holidays or avoid carrying a property through winter, the
window is closing. That urgency is real and it works in your favor if you approach it correctly.
Coaching data shows that agents who contact expired listings between four and twelve weeks
after expiration get significantly more open conversations than those who call the same day.
The day-of callers compete with every other agent in the area. The agents who wait and then
reach out with a specific message about the fall market separate themselves completely.
The Three-Touch Sequence That Opens Doors
You do not win an expired listing with one call or one letter. You win it with a sequence that
builds familiarity before it asks for anything. Here is the sequence that works.
Touch One: The Handwritten Note

On day one of your outreach, send a handwritten note. Not a letter in a business envelope
with your logo. A personal card written by hand. This is the core of the handwritten note card
strategy, and the reason it works is simple. It does not look like prospecting. It looks like a
person reaching out.
Your note does not need to be long. Keep it to three or four sentences. Say that you noticed
their home was on the market this spring. Say that you work this area and you know fall can
be a strong window for the right property. Say that you would like to have a five-minute
conversation about what the fall market looks like for their neighborhood. Give your name
and number. That is it. No pitch. No stat dump. No mention of your production numbers.
Touch Two: The Phone Call
Three to five days after the note, make the call. The note has done the work of making your
name familiar. When you call, reference it. "I sent you a note earlier this week. I wanted to
follow up personally." That line alone separates this call from the cold calls they have already
ignored.
Your goal on this call is not to set a listing appointment. Your goal is to have a real
conversation. Ask what their experience was like. Ask what they feel like went wrong. Ask
whether they are still planning to sell. Listen more than you talk. Coaching data shows that
agents who ask three questions before making any statement about the market double their
appointment rates with expired listings. Most agents talk first and lose the seller in the first
sixty seconds.
Touch Three: The Golden Letter
If the first two touches do not produce an appointment, send a Golden Letter within ten days
of the call. The Golden Letter strategy positions you specifically as the agent who can convert
their situation. It references the frustration of a home not selling, names the specific market
timing coming up, and makes a single clear ask: a short in-person meeting to look at a new
approach together.
The Golden Letter works because it speaks directly to a buyer-to-seller conversion pattern. It
says, in essence, that buyers who wanted a home like theirs in the spring are still in the
market, and that fall is the season when motivated buyers close. It makes the seller feel like
their timing might actually work in their favor now. That reframe is what earns the
appointment.
What to Say at the Listing Appointment
When you walk into that appointment, you are not starting from zero. You have already had
a conversation and you already know something about what went wrong last time. Use that.
Open by acknowledging what they experienced. Do not be vague. If they told you on the
phone that they felt their last agent did not communicate or that the pricing strategy did not
match the market, say it back to them. "You mentioned you felt like the pricing conversation
never really happened. That matters and I want to make sure this time it does."
Then walk them through your analysis of why the home did not sell. Be specific. Was it
priced above where buyers were looking? Was it photographed poorly? Was it not marketed
beyond the MLS? Name the exact issue. Sellers respect specificity. It signals that you actually
understand the market and that you did your homework before walking in.
Then present your plan. What will you do differently. How will you price it and why. What
your marketing covers. What your communication schedule looks like. How you handle

offers. Make it concrete and make it yours. A generic listing presentation does not win
expired listings. A presentation that directly addresses what failed last time does.
The Pipeline Math Behind This Strategy
Your pipeline does not fill itself with good intentions. It fills through a specific number of
conversations. If you follow the 100 conversations per week prospecting model, expired
listings should be a named segment within that number. Not a separate project you do
occasionally, but a daily block.
Assign expired listing outreach to your morning lead generation window. The Bunker time-
blocking system calls for protecting your first hour or two of the workday for lead generation
before anything else touches your calendar. Expired outreach belongs in that block. Call
before you check email. Call before you respond to texts. Call before you think about
everything else on your list.
If you contact ten expired listings per week starting today, by Labor Day you will have
touched forty sellers. Some will not respond. Some will say they are waiting. A few will say
they are ready. That few is what builds your October. A two-listing month in October starts
with four good conversations in August. Four good conversations require forty attempts.
Forty attempts require consistency right now, in the week you are reading this.
Building Your Expired Listing List
Your MLS gives you access to expired listings. Pull them by expiration date. Focus on homes
that expired between sixty and one hundred twenty days ago. Filter out the ones that came
back on the market with another agent. What is left is your prospecting list.
Organize the list by neighborhood or price range where you have the most activity and
knowledge. You will have better conversations in areas where you can speak specifically to
recent sale prices and buyer activity. Depth of local knowledge is your advantage over agents
who work the entire metro.
Add each contact to your database with a follow-up sequence so no one falls off your radar
after touch three. If they say they are not ready until January, that is not a dead end. That is a
future pipeline entry. Set a task to reconnect in November. The database is the business, and
expired listings that convert in six months are worth tracking just as much as the ones that
convert next week.
Bottom Line
August is not a slow month. It is a setup month. The agents who will have a strong fourth
quarter are making calls right now to sellers who are ready to try again. Expired listings are
the most direct path to listing appointments when other lead sources feel inconsistent. They
do not require you to build awareness from scratch. They require you to show up with a plan,
a specific message, and the willingness to listen before you pitch. The strategy is simple. The
sequence is repeatable. The only thing standing between you and a full fall pipeline is
starting today.
Your Homework
This week, pull your expired listing report from your MLS and identify ten homes that
expired between sixty and one hundred twenty days ago in your core market area. Write and
mail handwritten notes to all ten this week. Block thirty minutes in your morning lead
generation window each day starting Monday to work through follow-up calls on any prior
expired outreach. Track every conversation in your database. Count the appointments you

set, not just the dials you make. One appointment booked from this week's outreach is proof
the system works. Go get it.
If you want help building a prospecting sequence that fits your schedule and your goals, visit
AgentGrowth365.com to connect with a coaching conversation. No pressure, just a look at
where you are and where you want to go.

Tiffany Hampton is a seasoned real estate leader and MAPS Coach with 28 plus years of experience and over 1,000 transactions, helping agents succeed through leadership, coaching, and innovative strategy. As the founder of AgentGrowth365.com, Tiffany delivers proven systems, tools, and training that empower agents and market center leaders to grow with clarity and purpose. Whether you’re looking to hit 24 transactions, streamline your coaching systems, or lead your business with impact, AgentGrowth365 offers a full suite of solutions designed to meet today's challenges and scale tomorrow's success.