I've never experimented with chasing expired listings before, but recently decided to give it a shot. Broker Bryant unselfishly sent me a copy of the letter he uses and I tailored it to fit. I've been faithfully sending this letter to the owners of EVERY home that expires in my area for about two weeks and got my first nibble on Monday morning. Of course I was excited to see some response from my efforts, yet somewhat reserved, having no experience with expireds and unsure of what I was up against.

From the voicemail he left, the caller seemed to be a very direct, no-nonsense type guy. I actually enjoy these types of clients most times because they're direct and to the point. You don't have to wonder how they feel about you or if they're happy with what you're doing for them. They WILL let you know where you stand! In his voicemail, he basically told me he was testing me and not to bother calling back if it wasn't within the next hour. You see, my new expired letter (thanks again BB) has a guarantee of sorts. It promises that I will either answer my phone or return the call within one hour between the hours of 8am & 5pm and 8pm & 10pm, Monday through Sunday. Funny that his voicemail was at about 8:02am Monday morning!

So anyway, of course I called him back promptly after dropping my daughter off at school (8:20am) and when I introduced myself, he said "you made it." Well, it was good to know he has a personality. I could tell from our brief "how are you" intros that he seems to be a pretty nice guy. Still direct and to the point. We got right to business. He told me all about his home and how frustrated he is with it not selling during the past YEAR. That's right, I said 1 year. You see, in our current Edmond real estate market, homes sell on an average of 93 days, and that's longer than last year. So, after hearing this home's been on the market for over a year (with four different agents), I knew there was something seriously wrong. He finished telling me about the beautiful details he and his wife had requested (and paid for) when building this home in 2005. I could already tell, this was going to be one of those "WOW" homes. You know, the 2-3% of all homes that go on the market; the type that just knocks your socks off when you walk in the door. They built it with plans of staying there for a long long time, but then relocated out of state.

I shared with him my initial thoughts on why the home hasn't sold, which of course basically came down to two things; Price & Marketing. Of course I know in the back of my mind, even with a total lack of marketing, if the price is even close to right, the house will sell itself, so the big issue here has to be the list price. He tells me he's already lowered the price over $25,000 and won't lower it another dime. Obviously, the next step is to go see for myself so I tell him I'll do just that in the next two days and call him back. In fact, he had insisted that I walk through the house before I start looking at numbers.

Monday gets away and there's no chance to go see the house, so Tuesday I head out to take a look and, of course, I pull up and it's the nicest house on the block, maybe even in the whole neighborhood. And yes, I was right about the WOW factor. This home is gorgeous with a capital G! It's got everything; solid-core doors, tons of tile, hardwood floors, crown molding everywhere, 3cm granite, stone brick & tile everywhere, under-mounted cooks sink, top-of-the-line fixtures, custom cabinetry, gigantic rooms, faux paint everywhere you look, huge walk-in closets in every room, amazing detail, screened florida room, and the list goes on. It's just amazing. OK, enough of that. I get back to the computer and start pulling comps & checking absorption rates. Yes, Iknew this one would be overpriced, but SHEESH! Remember how I told you the seller had already lowered the price more than $25K? Get this, it's STILL almost $30,000 too high! We're not talking about a million-dollar home either. This listing started in the low $290s and is now in the low $270s, but needs to be in the low $240s.

The topic of overpriced listings is often discussed here on AR and it's encouraging to see that other top agents take the same approach to listings that I do. The frustrating thing is when I see a situation like this one. In my opinion, there are several "professionals" who've let these homeowners down.

• First, the home builder. This home is just plain overbuilt. It's nicer and more equipped than any other house I've seen in the area. Did the builder advise them on the potential problems with overbuilding?
• Second, the appraiser. We all know that appraisers have been pushing the envelope for the last several years. This is a good example of how an appraiser can hurt a home buyer. I know they're under pressure and don't want to be the deal breaker, but when is enough enough? This house was custom built and purchased for $282K less than two years ago in a market that hasn't been and still isn't in a slump.
• Third, Fourth, Fifth & Sixth, the "real estate professionals" who listed this home WAY too high. Not only did they give these home owners a false sense of hope, but they caused this home to flounder on the market for over a year, creating a stigma that may have to be overcome by underpricing the home. They've caused the owners to have to make an extra year's mortgage payments, just waiting for that "dream buyer" to come along. Chances are this house would never even come close to making the appraisal even if some naive buyer did make an offer. By taking such an overpriced listing, they've hurt these sellers tremendously. Now I know it's not a perfect world, but if these folks had been advised by one agent after another that their house WOULD NOT SELL at that price, they might have had a fighting chance.

The only one I can control is myself. I continue to stick to my guns. It's very difficult sometimes to be blunt with a homeowner about the value of their home. We don't want to offend them and instinct is to just take the listing. We want our sign out there. Some people will even tell you to just take the listing no matter what price and work on getting the sellers to lower their list price after you have them under contract. Taking a slightly overpriced listing is one thing. I've done it (in a really strong market) and sometimes it pays off, but taking a grossly-overpriced listing not only hurts the homeowner; It also hurts the neighborhood and even your own reputation. In my opinion, it borders on unethical. When uneducated neighbors see a high-priced listing, they start thinking maybe they can sell their home for that much (after all, they're just watching what the "professionals" are doing), then suddenly you've not only misled your own clients, but you're misleading others and slowing down the overall sales in that area. Yes, being blunt is tough, but we owe it to our clients and the general public to keep them informed and help them see things in a realistic light. I hate to sound preachy, but we know better than anyone what the market is doing and what a house will sell for, right? If you answered yes, then you'll boldly tell a homeowner what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. If you won't, then maybe you're not so confident in your knowledge after all and need to re-evaluate your methods of assessing the market.

So, I had a tough conversation with these homeowners and, most likely, won't get a listing out of it, but I hope and pray that I've done them a service by being honest and upfront about their situation. After speaking with them, I recapped my points in this email: