How to Get More Real Estate Listings Without Chasing More Leads

During a recent REDX webinar, host Curtis Fenn pointed out that national home turnover sat at just 2.77% as of May 2026, the lowest rate in more than 40 years, even though the country has 75 million more homeowners than it did back then. So if a slow pipeline is the problem, more leads usually isn’t the fix. There simply aren’t more sellers to find. The real answer to how to get more real estate listings, and the lever behind how to get more listings in real estate right now, is converting the sellers who are already trying to move.

That was the core idea REDX’s Curtis Fenn pushed on a recent webinar with Steve Guertin, CEO of Agent Legend: stop thinking like a prospector who grinds through volume, and stop thinking like an influencer chasing views. Think like a marketer, and choose an audience that already needs to transact. That audience is expired listings, canceled listings, and FSBOs, people already trying to sell.

Here’s what changed in how top agents work that list: how they build a team around themselves, how they use handwritten mail, and how long they keep following up before they let a lead go.

Why Won’t More Leads Get You More Real Estate Listings?

Because a listing deal is worth far more of your time than a buyer deal, and the math only works if you convert the sellers you can already reach. It takes about 4.6 buyer leads to match the income of a single listing deal, and agents earn roughly $1,456 an hour on seller leads versus $320 an hour on buyer leads, according to Redfin’s research.

Expired and FSBO sellers already clear the biggest hurdle: intent. REDX seller leads convert at 22.8% for expireds and 15.0% for FSBOs, per REDX’s 2.7 million lead study, and REDX agents take 3x more listings than the average agent. Josh Sarangal is a working example: he built 10 to 11 listings a year without cold calling, including one Ad Builder campaign that brought in more than $70,000 in commission. That’s the return on converting better, not calling more.

What Is the “A-Team” Model for Winning More Listings?

Bring a team with you, and let them solve the seller’s real problem. Guertin’s business built what they call the “A-team”: an inspector, a stager, a photographer, and a financing partner who can front repair costs.

How Do You Get the Seller to Say Yes to the First Visit?

The offer starts simple. “Let them just walk around the house. You already know that I know where you live, so I could drive by anytime. Let them walk around the house. We’ll send them out,” Guertin said. That inspection gives an honest reason to call back with a punch list: “Here are the 10 things that we found that I think, I believe that if we fix these things, you’re going to have success, whether it’s with us or not.”

From there, a photographer or stager can point out what’s actually hurting the listing. That leaves the agent out of the job of delivering bad news about the seller’s own photos. None of these partners need to be paid up front; they get paid when the referral turns into business. Once the seller starts asking the agent what else they should do to get ready, the listing is close. As Fenn put it during the call, that’s the moment an agent becomes the facilitator of the solution, the person the seller looks to for what happens next.

How Do You Answer “Why Should I List With You” as a New Agent?

The A-team also solves an objection agents worry about more than they should: experience. A first-year agent who has only closed a handful of deals can still say, honestly, that the inspector, the stager, and the photographer on their team have decades of experience between them. Borrowing that authority from the people around you is a real answer to “why should I work with you.”

What Are the Three Reasons a Listing Doesn’t Sell?

Price, condition, or motivation. Guertin calls it a three-legged stool: “You can’t successfully transact if one of those legs is gone, you have no chance.” Price gets blamed most often, but a seller who agrees to the price in the first place shares that responsibility too. A useful line for that conversation: you name the price, and the agent helps dictate the terms that can actually get you there.

Condition is where the A-team earns its keep. Fresh photography matters more than most agents think. When a listing relists with a new agent, it almost always gets new photos, because the new agent has no old set to fall back on, unlike an agent relisting the same home a second time. Motivation is the leg agents chase the least carefully. Chasing a listing agreement from a seller who isn’t truly motivated, just to post about a new listing, leaves no real business behind it. If a seller isn’t ready to move, let a competitor take that call and put the energy into sellers who are.

How Do You Use Handwritten Direct Mail to Win Listings Other Agents Miss?

Layer it on top of everything else you’re already doing. Most direct mail is cheap and generic by design, and it should stay that way for volume. REDX’s built-in Vortex postcards, for example, run about 88 cents per postcard and cover a whole list cheaply. Save real handwritten letters for the moments that matter most: a first touch on your best prospects, or a triggered follow-up right after someone responds.

What Kind of Results Does a Handwritten Letter Actually Get?

Guertin’s company now uses machines that write with an actual pen, on paper, in a real handwriting style, then mails it with postage like any personal letter. On expired listings specifically, that handwritten touch produced 4X the response rate of their prior generic mail, and the meetings that came from it held up 25% more often. The letters run about $2 to $3 each, more than a standard postcard, but cheap next to a commission check. A simple trigger works well: the moment a lead responds or an inspector visits the home, a follow-up letter goes out automatically, something as direct as, “So and so saw your property. It’s beautiful. We’d love to represent you.”

One honest caveat from the data: this tactic is proven on expireds and canceleds specifically. Guertin said his company doesn’t yet have strong results running the same handwritten approach on FSBOs, so treat it as a tool for the expired side of your list for now.

How Many Times Should You Follow Up Before a Seller Responds?

Plan on somewhere between 30 and 50 touches across a call, a text, an email, and a mailer. Older sales advice used to promise results in 7 to 12 touches; most agents give up long before they get anywhere near 30. The way to hit that number without wearing out one channel is to spread it across all of them: a call, then a text, then an email, then a mailer, on repeat.

Timing matters as much as volume. “We see the highest responses coming about a week after the data comes through their system,” Guertin said. That delay makes sense once you consider the seller’s state of mind.

Homeowners surveyed after an expired listing consistently report feeling embarrassed first, not angry, according to Agent Legend’s own research; they spent months telling neighbors and family they were moving, then had to explain that the sign came down. Give that a little room before piling on.

Door knocking came up as one more channel option, and Fenn and Guertin landed in different places on it. Fenn avoids it outright unless there’s a specific reason to be on that porch. Guertin’s data shows that 59% of agents earning over $250,000 a year still knock doors, but strategically, tied to a specific price point or to a call and letter the seller already received.

How Long Should You Work an Expired or FSBO Lead Before Moving to Long-Term Nurture?

Go hard for about six weeks, then move anyone who hasn’t responded into a long-term nurture bucket and keep their information active. 43% of expired listings relist within 90 days, and the average relist rate lands around 45 days, so the first six weeks is where most of that activity happens. Stay active in that window with phone calls, text messages, and mail pieces, all pointed at figuring out the seller’s real timeline and motivation.

Much of how to get more listings as a realtor comes down to sticking with sellers longer than the next agent will. After that, don’t purge the list. 65% of expired listings relist within two years, and old data still pays off. Move non-responders to a slower monthly or quarterly cadence, and keep watching for signals: a for-sale sign goes up nearby, a homeowner clicks a market update email, or a new active listing lands in the same zip code as an old expired lead. Any of those is a legitimate reason to reach back out.

Kayla Dieppa‘s numbers show what that patience compounds into: $7 million in her first year, up to $14 million since, built on 43% expired and 38% FSBO conversion rates, both consistent with what a well-worked list should produce over time. Josh Roy used the same combination, Expired plus FSBO, to hit 15 consistent listings a month in a brand-new market. Neither result came from finding new leads faster. Both came from working the same leads longer and better.

Your Next Six Weeks: Turning This Into a Plan

This is how to get more listings as a real estate agent by working the sellers already on your list harder and smarter. Line up the team before touching the list. An inspector, a stager, a photographer, and a repair-financing contact give an agent something real to offer besides their own time.

1. Build your A-team first: an inspector, a stager, a photographer, and one financing or repair-loan contact who gets paid when the referral turns into business.
2. Set your touch sequence across a call, a text, an email, and a mailer, running on repeat for six weeks. Save the handwritten letter for your best prospects and let a generic postcard cover the rest of the list.
3. Diagnose every stalled listing against the three-legged stool: price, condition, or motivation, and bring the right A-team member in for whichever leg is weak.
4. At six weeks, move non-responders into a long-term nurture bucket and keep their information active. Set a recurring quarterly check and a trigger for new activity nearby.

Paula Burlison built $522,000 in GCI and 43 listings a year with more than 40% of it from expired listings alone, using a version of this same approach: a real team, consistent follow-up, and a list she never stopped working. A better system for the sellers already looking to hire someone is the actual lever for more listings.