Where Agents Get Expired Listing Leads (and What They Cost)

Every expired listing lead has two parts: the property and the phone number. Your MLS gives you the property for free. The phone number is what agents pay for.

Where do expired listing leads come from?

Expired listings start in the MLS. When a listing agreement ends without a sale, the status changes to expired. Withdrawn, cancelled and terminated listings work the same way, and any MLS member can see those status changes.

What the MLS usually won't give you is a way to reach the owner. You get the address, the price history and the days on market, and typically the listing agent's contact details. The homeowner's phone number is usually missing.

So getting expired leads takes two steps. First, pull the addresses from your MLS. Then find the owners' phone numbers through an owner lookup, which matches a property address to the owner's name and contact details using public and commercial records.

Most paid expired lead services do both for you and deliver the result inside a dialer.

How do you get expired listings from the MLS?

Set up an automatic saved search in your MLS for status changes. Most MLS systems let you:

1. Choose the statuses to watch: expired, withdrawn, cancelled and terminated.
2. Limit the search to your market area and price range.
3. Set delivery to "immediately" or "as soon as possible," by email.

That alert is your hotsheet. With immediate delivery, you see new expireds as soon as your MLS publishes the status change, often before a paid list refreshes. Speed counts with expireds. The first agents to reach the owner usually get the best conversations.

Check two things. MLS data comes with usage rules, so confirm your MLS allows you to use status-change data for prospecting, and how. Then run a second search for listings that expired 3, 6 or 12 months ago. Nobody has called those owners in a while, and some of them still want to sell.

Expired, withdrawn or cancelled: which should you call?

Call all three, but expect a slightly different conversation with each.

An expired listing ran out its agreement without a sale. The owner may be frustrated with the market or the last agent, and is often open to a second opinion.

Withdrawn usually means the home came off the market while the listing agreement is still in effect. Check your MLS and the agreement's dates first. If the owner is still under an exclusive listing with another agent, don't pitch them on listing with you.

Cancelled or terminated means the agreement ended early. Confirm in the MLS that it really ended, then ask what changed before you pitch anything.

Keep each status in its own list so you can track how each one converts.

What do expired listing lead services cost?

The big names in expired data for agents are Vulcan7, REDX and Mojo. Each pairs expired listing data (with owner phone numbers) with a dialer. Here's what each publishes as of October 2026:

Prices change, and what you end up paying depends on your market size, how many areas you cover and which add-ons you pick. Check each provider's current pricing page before you decide.

The monthly price is only part of the comparison. Ask how fast the data arrives after a listing expires, and how many of the phone numbers reach the real owner. Make sure your county or MLS area is covered. Find out whether numbers on the Do Not Call Registry are flagged or removed. And check whether you'd be paying twice: if your MLS already gives you the addresses, you may only need the phone numbers.

What else can you do besides buying a list?

Look up the owners on your own MLS hotsheet. Your MLS already gives you the addresses, so all you need is the owners' phone numbers. Owner lookup services charge per record, which means you pay only for the addresses you plan to call.

Look up ownership in public records. Your county assessor or property appraiser lists the owner's name and mailing address. That's enough for a letter, though not for a call.

Send mail. A short letter to each new expired, with a reason to call you back, works alongside your calls and reaches owners whose numbers you can't find.

Knock on doors. For expireds near your farm area, a visit can work well, especially if you bring something useful, like a recent sales report for the street.

How AVEX builds an expired call list

AVEX uses your MLS as the source. You export your expired, withdrawn or cancelled hotsheet from the MLS (or paste a list of addresses), and AVEX:

1. Maps the columns from your MLS export: address, owner name, status, list price and days on market.
2. Finds owner phone numbers for each address with an owner lookup.
3. Flags Do Not Call numbers. Numbers on the DNC list are hidden and can't be dialed from AVEX.
4. Builds today's Call List, ready to work in the AVEX Dialer, with each owner's record, phones and listing details on one screen.

Because the addresses come from your own MLS, new expireds reach your list as soon as your MLS alert sends them.

Do you need to scrub expired leads for DNC?

Yes. Expired owners are cold leads, so scrub against the National Do Not Call Registry at least every 31 days, plus state lists, and call within legal hours. Even when a tool flags DNC numbers, the rules are still your responsibility; see cold calling rules.

Not legal advice. Check your state rules and your broker.