I’m greedy! I’m an extremist! I am conservative! I am a capitalist! Haha. I love money! 2010 marks the years (not Karl Marx silly) I mean marks the calendar for the 2010 to become the listing king. Between website registrations, referrals, & and windfall expired letters I set out to fundamentally transform Worthington Realty from small hometown broker, to completely dominating the local market. Below I will share the expired program statistics I am using that has fundamentally transformed Worthington Realty from nay to yay; or should I say mediocure to maybe Russell Shaw like (in the next hundred years).
So here are the expired numbers!
I have sent out 92 mailings
I have received 8 call back
I have listed 5 priced to sell quickly
I have 1 closing in the pipeline from expireds
92 mailings / 8 call backs = 11.5% Wow! I mail out 100 and 11.5 will call back! Sweet!
8 call backs / 5 listings = 62.5% of call back I am listing. 1 listing I turned down because of price, 1 listing I didn’t make the cut, and 1 call back canceled the listing appointment plans to keep for home for now.
92 mailings / 1 closing in the pipeline = 1.08% are closings Average closing say $4k – $8k on the listing side.
92 mailings / 5 listings = 18.4 letters to get a listing.
My data is only 92 mailings that I have selectively sent expired letters to. My initial mailing costs $1.52. If no phone call, I then send out a post card every week for 12 weeks. If still no phone call I leave it alone. Each post card is $0.55 Most leads call within the first 4 – 6 weeks. I have no idea why I am sending all the way out to week 12 (smirk)
I will update with more statistics in June, 2010 which will better quantify the data.
Do you currently have an expired program?
What are you thoughts on what works and what doesn’t?
Thank you taking time to read this capitalist post! Big Expired Program; Windfall profits!
Janie Coffey says:
are you going to share with us the contents of the mailing/postcards? Would love to know….
Also, I am a socialist at heart but that does NOT conflict with loving success and wanting to do well! 😉
March 9, 2010 — 1:00 am
Erion Shehaj says:
Stats look great!! Would love to take a look at the strategy you’re using also.
March 9, 2010 — 2:38 am
John Kalinowski says:
Robert – Great article! It’s good to see real numbers, and I must say I’m impressed by the number of calls you received from your first mailing. I am a heavy expired mailing sender, and have sent thousands in the last 4-5 years. I track all my stats, and typically send between 20-30 per day when I’m focused, but I only send one mailing. Haven’t tested the multiple mailing idea, but I think I should.
My bigger problem has been in keeping the program consistent so that it happens every day. I’ve been very inconsistent and will typically send them every day for about a month and then get off track for a while before doing it for another month. I’m working on getting someone else to help so it’s consistent.
Here are my stats for 2009:
Total mailings sent: 1763
% that called me: 2.84%
% I listed: 2.04%
% Sold: 1.59%
Your closing % seems to be right on track, but your response numbers are phenomenal, to say the least! You either got lucky or you have an incredible mailer. If I could get 11% to respond I would spend every waking minute sending expireds! You will probably need to send several hundred or a thousand before you can get a true grip on your repeatable stats.
Would love to see what you are sending, and maybe we could send each other a copy of our complete packets by snail mail?
March 9, 2010 — 5:44 am
Brian Miller says:
Robert,
Those are great great results. Like the others, I would be interested in seeing what you are sending.
I attempted something similar. I created a one page letter, included a one page flyer showing how their home would be promoted, and also included a booklet about expired listings (purchased from my big name realty company for whom I worked for at the time).
Then I sent them a postcard every other day (3 total).
I didn’t count, but probably sent around 200 of these. I got absolutely zero. No calls, emails, etc.
Inconsistency was part of it, maybe my letter sucked?? I don’t claim to be a master marketer, but I was stunned by the poor results, and scrapped it.
My desire it to re-start an expired program, and would love to see what you send…
March 9, 2010 — 6:46 am
Jeff Brown says:
Wow, wish I’d a thought of that. Great stuff, Robert — keep it up.
March 9, 2010 — 8:16 am
Al Lorenz says:
Super stats! Whatever you’re mailing is working.
March 9, 2010 — 10:35 am
Bob Rutledge says:
Great article, it was fun to read. I have been teaching to my real estate partners the value of marketing to Expired Listings for some time now.
If you mail out to those who have not responded more than once your numbers will get even better, a large number of expired listings do not re-list until within 60 days of expiration so stay on them. But, 78% of all expired listings will re-list eventually, but only 27% with the previous listing agent.
Another statistic I gleaned from a NAR study stated that 80% of all expired listings felt that the reason their house did not sell was because the previous agent did not do enough to place their house in front of all potential buyers…in other words they did not do enough to market the property.
With expired listings 8 out of 10 are thinking it is all about the marketing, so we talk to the expired listing about how we are better marketers.
March 9, 2010 — 11:46 am
Gloria Singer says:
This was an interesting and timely post as implementing an expired program is at the top of my to-do list. Your numbers are very inspiring. Are you using any specific criteria to determine which expireds to send to? What specifically are you including in your first mailing? Thanks for sharing your numbers!
March 11, 2010 — 5:08 am
Louis Cammarosano says:
Hi Rob
You are not alone!
Post card mailers scored high on HomeGain’s survey of 1300 realtors for effectiveness and for planned 2010 marketing activities
http://blog.homegain.com/homegain-market-data/top-10-most-effective-marketing-strategies-for-real-estate-agents/
March 11, 2010 — 8:13 pm
Janie Coffey says:
for those who have had successful expired programs, what number of mailings do you find is the sweet spot b/w cost and conversion rate? I see above that some are doing a single mailing and some following up for 12 weeks… ideas?
March 14, 2010 — 6:00 am
Janie Coffey says:
for anyone who is interested, I have started a Google Wave regarding marketing expireds. Pls email me at janiecoffey at gmail.com if you would like to be part of the wave. I have a few Wave invites for those who need them…
March 14, 2010 — 8:50 am
Janie Coffey says:
oops, sorry, janie.coffey at gmail.com
March 14, 2010 — 8:51 am
John Kalinowski says:
@Janie – For me it has always been a numbers game. If you send a certain number of mailings, a certain percentage will call, but I’ve never tried sending multiple mailings to the same person. It’s hard to track if you’re mailing in quantity, plus you run into the potential problem of mailing to someone after they’ve re-listed with another broker. To follow the rules, you would have to check each one in the MLS every time you mail to them again. If they re-listed, you can’t mail anything, so the multiple mailing thing is tricky.
March 14, 2010 — 9:22 am
Janie Coffey says:
@John, those are good points. When I ran a 12 week expired program in the past, I would lable and stamp each mailer at one time and then drop them into a giant tickler box (I had one for each month). The problem was, that if someone had moved, relisted, etc. the postcard, stamp and effort was wasted as the first round cards started to come back as undeliverable, but I still had several already addressed. Getting a good system which controls the effort and highlights the conversion is key.
If anyone wants to join the Expired Google Wave I am starting, let me know 😉
March 14, 2010 — 11:29 am
Geoff says:
Those are very impressive numbers Robert. It’s great to know that you’re able to reach these home sellers and let them know that you can help them. That’s the big struggle. People who’s listings are expired are very confused and don’t know who to turn to for help. It’s interesting to see the choices that people make when they are trying to sell their homes in San Diego.
March 14, 2010 — 4:30 pm