Your Listing Expired. Now What?
Months of showings, and the house didn't sell. Before you relist — or give up — it's worth an honest diagnosis and a real alternative number.
Why listings actually die
Houses fail to sell for a short list of reasons, and it's worth being honest about which one was yours. Sometimes it's price — the market voted, every week of silence was the ballot. Often it's condition: buyers toured, inspections bit, and deals died in the renegotiation, or financing collapsed when a lender looked hard at the roof or the foundation. Sometimes the house showed poorly through no fault of anyone — occupied, tenanted, or full. And sometimes the listing was simply serviced badly. The diagnosis matters, because each cause has a different right answer.
The honest menu after expiry
- Relist, priced to the market's verdict. Right when the house is genuinely sound and the first price was the problem. A new agent and a hard price conversation can absolutely work — we'll say so when it's true.
- Fix what killed the deals, then relist. Right when you have the cash and patience for the repairs the inspections kept flagging — knowing the market now also sees the house's accumulated days-on-market history.
- Sell directly for cash. Right when the condition issues aren't getting fixed, the carrying costs keep running, and you're done hosting showings. We buy as-is, there's no inspection-renegotiation cycle, and no lender to collapse a third deal.
What we do differently with an expired listing
Everything your listing revealed becomes useful instead of embarrassing: the inspection reports from deals that died, the feedback from showings, the repair bids you gathered — send it all, because it lets us price the real house and put a number in writing that doesn't move at the closing table. Market time doesn't spook us the way it spooks retail buyers reading the listing history. One practical note: some listing agreements include a protection period covering buyers your agent introduced — worth a look, and a question for your former broker. We come to you independently, but you should know what your own paperwork says before signing anything with anyone.
Questions people in this situation ask
Does all that time on the market lower what you'll offer?
No — our offer is built from the house's condition and nearby sales, not from its listing history. Long market time usually tells us the retail price was wrong or the condition scared financed buyers, and both of those are already how we price. The days-on-market stigma is a retail-buyer problem, not ours.
Do I owe my old agent a commission if I sell to you after the listing expired?
Check your expired listing agreement — many include a protection period, but it generally covers buyers the agent introduced during the listing, and we weren't one of them. The definitive answer lives in your paperwork, so read it or ask the broker directly before you sign anything with any buyer.
Two buyers fell through on financing already. How is your offer different?
There's no lender in ours — which removes the appraisal, the loan approval and the eleventh-hour collapse that killed your deals. Once title is clear, the sale closes on the date you pick, and the written offer you accepted is the number you get.
Listing expired without a sale?
Tell us the address — the listing history doesn't scare us.
Find out what we'd pay for your house
Tell us the address and a little about the property. There is no fee, no listing agreement and no obligation to accept anything we offer.