The housing data is the marketing story today. Realtor.com's October report, out this morning, has contract signings down 17% from a year ago and pending sales down 10.5%, while active listings grew 7.4% to more than 1.18 million homes for sale. Sellers are holding rather than slashing: 20.5% of listings carried a price cut, only 0.2 points above last year. Realtor.com puts the buyer's side plainly, too: the same monthly principal and interest now supports a loan nearly 6% smaller than it did in late August. That is a clear, dated picture of who paused and why, and the buyers on your list who went quiet in September and October are the people it describes.
The rate backdrop gives you something new to bring them. Bankrate's 30-year fixed reads 7.23% today, the low of its 30-day range of 7.23% to 7.57% and 34 bps under the Oct. 12 high, though still in the upper half of its 90-day range of 6.67% to 7.57%. On a $400K loan, principal and interest at 7.23% runs about $2,723 a month, roughly $93 less than at the October high. The October jobs report lands Friday, November 6, and can move that number either way, which makes this week a natural moment for a check-in rather than a pitch.
Tactical move: write one short re-entry email for paused buyers that leads with what changed for them, more homes to choose from and a lower payment than at the fall peak, and offers a refreshed pre-approval rather than a rate. Keep the inventory figure attributed to Realtor.com, and if your market is covered, swap in its own figures, since the report breaks results out by region and for the top 50 metros. Send it before Friday so the conversation starts on a known number.
pull every buyer you pre-approved since September who is not under contract, and schedule the re-entry email to go out by Thursday afternoon.