1.4 Million Agents. 4 Million Home Sales. Vulcan7’s New Report Shows Who’s Winning, and How.

The State of Real Estate Prospecting 2026 combines 76.9 million calls, 2.3 million leads, and current market data to benchmark what separates the agents closing deals from the ones waiting for the phone to ring.

American Fork, UT, Sept. 23, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vulcan7®, a leading real estate prospecting platform, today released The State of Real Estate Prospecting in 2026. Drawing on 76.9 million dialer calls and approximately 2.3 million leads generated through the Vulcan7 platform between January 2024 and April 2026, alongside current industry research, the report documents what direct outreach to motivated sellers actually produces and what the market conditions behind those sellers look like right now.

Report: The State of Real Estate Prospecting in 2026

The report arrives at a moment when the housing market is generating more motivated sellers than it has in years. Foreclosure filings rose 14% in 2025. Active listings climbed 19% year over year. Expired listings surged roughly 38% in late 2025. And 62.2% of buyers paid below list price, the largest share since 2012. The opportunity is real. But with 65% of transactions going to the top 20% of agents, many more agents could be sharing in it.

Five trends from the data:

Trend 1: The motivated seller pool is the largest in the modern record, and growing.

Vulcan7 delivered 4.5 million expired leads in 2025, up 35% over two years. Industry data puts national expired listings up roughly 45% year to date. The pool is refilling faster than most agents realize.

Trend 2: Direct prospecting outperforms portal leads by a wide margin, and the gap is widening.

Internet leads now average $181 each, up 1,107% since 2015, at a national conversion rate of approximately 0.4%. Expired listings list at a 44% rate within roughly 30 days of first contact. The math on portal-dependent strategies no longer works for most agents.

Trend 3: The best time to call is more forgiving than most agents think.

Answer rates peak at 11 AM Eastern and remain strong through mid-afternoon, with Monday the strongest day of the week. But the variation between best and worst windows is modest. The data makes a simple case: phone prospecting is worthwhile whenever you actually do it.

Trend 4: The calendar is an underused competitive advantage.

January 1st 2026 produced 166,031 expired leads — 15.2 times the typical daily volume. But January isn't the only spike. The first of every month runs 3–5x above the daily median as listing agreements terminate. Agents who call the day leads land get first access to a pool most competitors haven’t touched.

Trend 5: The agents who prospect are doing more of it, not less.

Average monthly call volume on the Vulcan7 platform grew 33% between 2024 and early 2026. Agents committed to direct outreach are not just surviving a difficult market; they are pulling further ahead in it.

“We are in one of the stronger prospecting environments in recent memory: more motivated sellers, more expired listings, and more opportunity for agents willing to pick up the phone,” said Abby Brennan of Vulcan7. “This report puts real numbers behind that reality. The agents sharing in it are the ones who show up consistently, work the right leads, and trust the process.”

The full report — including connection benchmarks for real estate leads, calling behavior analysis, market context, and strategic recommendations for agents — is available now at vulcan7.com/state-of-real-estate-prospecting.

Quote about the strength of real estate prospecting opportunity in 2026

About Vulcan7

Vulcan7 is a leading real estate leads and prospecting platform serving agents across the United States. The platform combines a dialer with built-in spam protection and a CRM built for real estate, with daily delivery of expired listing, FSBO, FRBO, pre-foreclosure, and circle prospecting leads. The 76.9 million calls and 2.3 million leads analyzed in The State of Real Estate Prospecting 2026 were generated through the normal day-to-day activity of Vulcan7 subscribers: real agents, making real calls, to real homeowners. Visit vulcan7.com.

Press Inquiries

Abby Brennan
abby [at] kaidatasystems.com
https://www.vulcan7.com
195 W. Main Street
American Fork, UT 84003