What the September Numbers Say About Listing Failure
NAR’s October 13 release has the headline figures: 3.99 million annualized sales, 1.60 million homes for sale, and roughly 4.8 months of supply. The median price was $417,500, up 1.3% from a year earlier and the 39th straight month of annual gains. Mortgage News Daily’s coverage of the release shows the same picture. Prices are still edging up while volume is down, a setup in which overpricing is a likely reason many listings fail: seller expectations follow the headline median while buyers choose among more homes.
Be careful with the days-on-market figure. NAR put the national median at 33 days, up from 31 in August and level with a year earlier, so the month-to-month stretch is small and the year-over-year change is nil. The expired pipeline is not a story about the median listing. It is the long tail, NAR’s release does not count it, and the only way to size it is your local MLS data.
Expired, Withdrawn, Cancelled: Three Different Sellers
The statuses are not interchangeable, and exact definitions vary by MLS. An expired listing ran out its term without a sale. A withdrawn listing was pulled before the term ended, often so the owner could reprice, make repairs, or take a break, and it may return under a new agreement. A cancelled listing ended early, frequently because the owner and the agent parted ways. Each status tells you something about motive before you say a word, and each calls for a different opening.
Think about the state of mind behind each one. An owner whose house sat through weeks of showings without an offer is often tired and a little defensive, and the flood of agent calls after expiry has taught them to expect a pitch. Open with curiosity about what happened, not with an offer. And confirm the status before you dial: a listing still under an active agreement belongs to the agent for now, and some agreements carry protection periods after they end.
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Book a Real Estate Fit CallDiagnose the Failure Before You Make the Offer
Listings fail for a handful of reasons, and each one leads to a different conversation. Price: the seller anchored on a number the market did not support, and the useful work is a calm walk through sold comps, as covered in the post on anchoring on an online estimate. Condition: buyers balked at repairs, and an as-is offer with honest repair accounting fits. Presentation: weak photos or thin marketing, where a good relist may serve the owner better than your offer, and saying so builds a reputation worth having. Constraints: tenants, title problems, or probate, where flexible terms may be the only workable path.
An owner who will not move on price is usually not your lead, so find that out early and move on politely. Diagnosis also protects your underwriting. A house that could not find a retail buyer at its list price will not suddenly find a cash buyer at a thin spread. Build your numbers from closed sales and time on market rather than list prices, and check that your buyers would actually pay what your offer implies.
Running the Pipeline: Two Waves and a Clean Process
Expired lists come in waves. The first days after expiry are crowded, because agents and investors all see the status change at once. Call in that wave only when you can offer something distinct, such as certainty, an as-is sale, or a flexible closing date. The quieter second wave comes weeks later, when owners who did not relist have had time to reconsider, and it is worth working. Track relists through status changes and drop anyone who has signed with another agent. The expired listing leads guide covers sourcing the data.
Keep the process clean. Pull the list weekly, dedupe against earlier contacts, suppress opt-outs, and scrub against the registries before every session. Expired-listing owners are consumers like any others for Do Not Call purposes, and a prior relationship with their agent is not a relationship with you. The Do Not Call rules guide explains what to check.
What a Slow Market Changes About Patience
In a balanced market, seller realism arrives gradually. An owner who said no in September may be ready to talk after another stretch of carrying costs and quiet showings. Keep a long-tail follow-up for the owners who were not ready, with light, honest touches rather than weekly pressure. The post on wholesaling in a balanced market covers what the same NAR data means for spreads and dispo.
Weeks can pass in a slow market with nothing converting, which is when many owner-operators stop dialing. VA Horizon runs managed cold calling that stays on expired and withdrawn lists through the quiet stretches and qualifies each interested seller before the appointment lands on your calendar, and you pay per qualified lead rather than for hours.
Sources
The external data in this article draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.
- NAR, "Existing-Home Sales Increased 1.5% in September" (Oct 13, 2026)
- Mortgage News Daily, NAR September 2026 EHS coverage