In real estate, there’s a quiet heartbreak called the expired listing. A homeowner stages, scrubs, paints, hides their life in the oven, and lives in an endless state of “show-home readiness.” Then—sixty, ninety, one-hundred-twenty days later—the listing expires, unsold. The dream doesn’t crash; it just quietly times out.
From early August to the end of September in Durham Region, 337 homes expired without selling. The first week of October alone saw 87 more vanish from the MLS. That’s a lot of made beds and microwaved takeout dinners ending in nothing but frustration.
Why?
Let’s start with the math. The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board has 70,000 members. In 2024, only 67,610 homes sold. That’s less than one transaction per agent. Zoom into our local board area—Pickering to Belleville, north to Peterborough—and you’ll find 9,800 agents chasing 32,000 transactions. About 5,000 of them sold exactly one home. One. For the entire year.
It’s like hiring a pilot who’s flown once since the pandemic and hoping for a smooth landing.
When sellers interview agents, it’s worth asking not just who’s nice, but who’s busy and who comes with a proven plan. Experience doesn’t just sell homes; it inoculates them from expiring.
The Other Usual Suspects
Marketing.
Buyers today shop with their thumbs. They want movement, music, and mood. Drone footage, cinematic video, floor plans, 3D walkthroughs—the new “For Sale” sign isn’t on your lawn, it’s on your phone. Yet many expired homes still rely on five badly lit iPhone photos and a prayer.
Staging.
We sold one home so quickly that a neighbour who looked at the marketing online insisted it must’ve been a different house entirely. It wasn’t. It was the same square footage—just painted, lit, and staged to look alive. Presentation isn’t fluff; it’s persuasion.
Accessibility.
Some listings make it feel like breaking into Fort Knox: no lockbox, limited showing windows, agents forced to beg for time slots. If it’s easier to get a bank on the phone than a showing in Oshawa, guess which one buyers choose?
Pricing.
Underpricing used to spark bidding wars. Overpricing used to look confident. Now both look tone-deaf. In September, homes between $750,000 and $1 million that sold at asking price did so because the price was right. Buyers in 2025 are allergic to games.
Floor Plans.
They deserve their own spotlight. Many Toronto buyers migrating east compare resale layouts to new builds. No floor plan? You’ve already lost half your audience.
What the Expirations Tell Us
The Durham market is now a split-screen: on one side, the pros—high-volume agents with strategic marketing, pricing precision, and cinematic presentation. On the other, listings that look like digital garage sales. That’s how nearly $300 million in real estate quietly left the stage this fall—unsold, unseen, and uncelebrated.
The good news? An expired listing isn’t a failure. It’s an intermission.
A new strategy, sharper staging, and a broker who treats marketing like theatre can turn the encore into a standing ovation.
If your listing just expired and you’re ready for Act Two, I’m at lindsay@buyselllove.ca or 905-743-5555.
Because the market doesn’t need more listings.
It needs better stories.