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The Best Time to Call Expired Listings
Twelve months of expired listing dials, measured per contact in the homeowner’s local time
The short answer
What is the best time to call expired listings?
Early. Across twelve months of expired listing dials placed through Mojo, the pattern is a staircase that starts high and steps down all day: 8am is the strongest hour in the published data, late morning is still good, the afternoon is flat and mediocre, and the evening is the worst time of the working day.
Monday is the strongest weekday. The weekend is the weakest part of the week.
1.19x
8am index
1.07x
9am index
0.84x
6pm index
0.60x
8pm index
A note on measurement before anything else. Every rate in this study is a contact rate per contact called: of the homeowners an agent dialed in a given hour, what share resulted in the last result CONTACT used by the caller. We do not count each phone number dialed as its own try — a homeowner with three numbers who answers on the second is one contact reached, not one success in three attempts. This is the same denominator correction we lay out in our contact rate benchmark study. It roughly doubles the percentages you may have seen quoted elsewhere, including in an earlier version of this article, without changing a single phone call in the data.
Just as important is what counts as a success in these figures. Every rate in this study counts only the marked Contact call result — calls the agent dispositioned as a live conversation with the intended homeowner. That is the strictest definition available, and it is the right one for comparing hour against hour.
Across the same twelve months, 53% of called expired contacts produced a live answer, against 9.9% on the strict contact-result measure. The hourly table below carries both columns, so read whichever matches how your own numbers are measured.
Whose conclusions these are
Every finding, ranking and “best window” in this study is a conclusion drawn from measured platform data — what thousands of accounts’ own choices produced, in aggregate. Mojo is not recommending calling behaviour here. The data reports what it measured; decisions about lists, calling windows and cadence remain yours, made against the rules that apply to you.
The hourly pattern
Every dial below went to a homeowner in a state we could map to a timezone, and every hour is expressed in the homeowner’s local time, not the caller’s. Each row reads: of the contacts called in this hour, what share were reached in this hour.
| Local hour | Contact rate | Index vs day average | Live answer rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8am | 7.3% | 1.19x | 55.6% |
| 9am | 6.5% | 1.07x | 51.3% |
| 10am | 6.5% | 1.06x | 49.5% |
| 11am | 6.3% | 1.03x | 48.9% |
| 12pm | 5.9% | 0.97x | 47.2% |
| 1pm | 5.5% | 0.90x | 46.4% |
| 2pm | 5.6% | 0.92x | 45.6% |
| 3pm | 5.7% | 0.93x | 46.8% |
| 4pm | 5.6% | 0.92x | 46.3% |
| 5pm | 5.5% | 0.89x | 46.4% |
| 6pm | 5.1% | 0.84x | 45.7% |
| 7pm | 4.7% | 0.77x | 43.1% |
| 8pm | 3.7% | 0.60x | 36.8% |
Three things stand out.
The day only goes downhill. There is no secondary peak. An earlier version of this study, measured per dial rather than per contact, showed a small late-morning bump around eleven — that bump was an artifact of the denominator, and it disappears once each homeowner counts once. The honest shape is a steady decline from the first hour to the last.
The morning premium is real and it is not small. A contact called at eight is reached at roughly one and a half times the rate of a contact called after six. The old per-dial version of this study understated the morning because morning sessions dial more of each contact’s numbers, which inflates a per-dial denominator exactly when agents are working hardest.
The evening is genuinely bad. By seven in the evening you are at three quarters of the daily average, and at eight you are at three fifths. The homeowner who did not pick up for anyone all afternoon is not going to become more receptive after dinner. For a prospecting block that currently sits after 6pm, the data prices a move to anywhere before noon as the single largest free improvement measured in this study.
The weekday pattern
| Weekday | Contact rate | Index |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 6.8% | 1.05x |
| Tuesday | 6.7% | 1.03x |
| Wednesday | 6.5% | 1.00x |
| Thursday | 6.4% | 0.99x |
| Friday | 6.4% | 0.98x |
| Saturday | 5.6% | 0.86x |
| Sunday | 5.1% | 0.79x |
Within the working week, day selection barely matters: Monday to Friday spans about seven percent, with Monday on top. The spread is small enough that a consistent schedule on any weekday beats waiting for the perfect Monday — that is arithmetic, not advice.
The weekend is a different story than the per-dial data used to tell. Measured per contact, Saturday runs 14% below the weekday average and Sunday 21% below. Expired homeowners are simply harder to land a conversation with on the weekend, and the earlier flattering view of weekend calling was another artifact of the per-dial denominator.
The strongest block in the data
For accounts able to protect only one daily block, the data’s strongest is 8am to 11am in the homeowner’s local time — it combines the best rates of the day with enough volume behind the figures to trust them, and each hour earlier inside it measures a few percent better. Whether to work that block, and how early to start it, stays your decision, made against your own compliance determination.
Why the homeowner’s timezone is the whole ballgame
If you are in Denver working a list that is heavily Florida and New York, your 9am is their 11am. Your 4pm is their 6pm, which is one of the worst windows in the data.
This is the most common unforced error we see in expired campaigns. An agent builds a disciplined morning routine in their own timezone, then works a coastal list, and unknowingly spends half of every session dialing into the evening decline.
The arithmetic points one way: a list sorted by the prospect’s timezone — eastern, then central, then mountain, then pacific — keeps a session inside the good window for longer, and the sort costs nothing.
Reading the data
The expired calling windows, as the data orders them
The ranking below is the data’s. What to do with it is yours.
- Strongest measured: 8am to 9am homeowner local time — when to start inside the morning is a decision you make against the calling-window rules that apply to you
- Strong: 9am to noon homeowner local time
- Middling: noon to 6pm
- Weak: after 6pm homeowner local time
- Weakest days: Saturday and Sunday
Where timing stops mattering
Timing is a real lever in an expired campaign — a bigger one than the per-dial version of this data suggested — but it is still not the biggest one.
Moving your block from the evening into the early morning is worth roughly a 40 to 50% relative improvement in contact rate, and evening-to-late-morning about half that.
By comparison, in the same platform data:
- A first attempt reaches an expired contact at nearly twice the rate of a sixth attempt at the same contact
- Keeping daily dial volume per caller ID down rather than pushing past 800 is associated with per-dial contact results nearly three times higher
- Moving from the bottom quartile of accounts to the median is a 2x change
In the data’s own ordering, the list and the caller ID come first; the clock is third.
Frequently asked
What is the best time of day to call expired listings?
Eight in the morning, homeowner’s local time, is the strongest hour in the published data, with 9am to 11am close behind — subject to the calling-window rules that apply to you and your list. Contact rates decline steadily all day, and the 7pm to 8pm stretch is the weakest.
Is Monday really the best day to call expireds?
Monday is the strongest weekday in twelve months of Mojo data, but the working week only spans about seven percent. The real gap is between the week and the weekend, which runs 14 to 21 percent below the weekday average.
Should I call expired listings in the evening?
The data argues against it. Per contact called, rates after 6pm run 16 to 40 percent below the daily average, declining hour by hour.
Does the time zone of the prospect matter?
More than almost anything else about timing. All figures here are calculated in the homeowner’s local time. Working a coastal list from a different timezone without sorting for it is the most common way agents end up dialing in the weakest windows.
How this was measured
Figures come from Mojo Dialer platform call records across roughly 11,400 Real Estate account databases, covering August 2025 through July 2026, limited to contacts sourced from the Mojo Expired lead product. Absolute call volumes are withheld; rates and index values are reported instead.
- Denominator: contacts, not dials. Each hourly and weekday cell counts the distinct contact records called in that cell, and the distinct contacts reached in that cell. Multiple phone numbers or repeat dials for the same homeowner do not inflate the denominator.
- Contact rate is the share of called contacts with a Contact disposition, meaning a live conversation where the last result CONTACT is used by the caller.
- Live answer rate is the share of called contacts where any human picked up (Contact, No Contact, DNC Contact, Bad Number, DNC Number).
- Hours before 8am and after 8pm are excluded from the published table: their volume is low and the pre-8am caller base is small and heavily self-selected.
- The choices in this data are the customers’. Mojo provides configurable dialing technology; the accounts behind these figures chose their own lists, calling windows, cadence and dispositions. The rates describe those choices in aggregate, not behaviour Mojo directs — and “best”/“worst” language throughout describes measured rates, not recommendations.
Known limitations
- Contacts in states that span two timezones are assigned the dominant zone, which introduces a small amount of noise.
- An hourly cell answers a specific question: of the contacts called in this hour, how many were reached in this hour. A homeowner unreached at 9am and reached at 3pm credits the 3pm cell.
- Industry category is self reported at the account level.
- Contact rate measures reaching a person. It does not measure appointments, listings taken, or revenue. A window that produces more conversations is not automatically the window that produces more business.
The Best Time to Call Expired Listings
Twelve months of expired listing dials, measured per contact in the homeowner’s local time
The short answer
What is the best time to call expired listings?
Early. Across twelve months of expired listing dials placed through Mojo, the pattern is a staircase that starts high and steps down all day: 8am is the strongest hour in the published data, late morning is still good, the afternoon is flat and mediocre, and the evening is the worst time of the working day.
Monday is the strongest weekday. The weekend is the weakest part of the week.
1.19x
8am index
1.07x
9am index
0.84x
6pm index
0.60x
8pm index
A note on measurement before anything else. Every rate in this study is a contact rate per contact called: of the homeowners an agent dialed in a given hour, what share resulted in the last result CONTACT used by the caller. We do not count each phone number dialed as its own try — a homeowner with three numbers who answers on the second is one contact reached, not one success in three attempts. This is the same denominator correction we lay out in our contact rate benchmark study. It roughly doubles the percentages you may have seen quoted elsewhere, including in an earlier version of this article, without changing a single phone call in the data.
Just as important is what counts as a success in these figures. Every rate in this study counts only the marked Contact call result — calls the agent dispositioned as a live conversation with the intended homeowner. That is the strictest definition available, and it is the right one for comparing hour against hour.
Across the same twelve months, 53% of called expired contacts produced a live answer, against 9.9% on the strict contact-result measure. The hourly table below carries both columns, so read whichever matches how your own numbers are measured.
Whose conclusions these are
Every finding, ranking and “best window” in this study is a conclusion drawn from measured platform data — what thousands of accounts’ own choices produced, in aggregate. Mojo is not recommending calling behaviour here. The data reports what it measured; decisions about lists, calling windows and cadence remain yours, made against the rules that apply to you.
The hourly pattern
Every dial below went to a homeowner in a state we could map to a timezone, and every hour is expressed in the homeowner’s local time, not the caller’s. Each row reads: of the contacts called in this hour, what share were reached in this hour.
| Local hour | Contact rate | Index vs day average | Live answer rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8am | 7.3% | 1.19x | 55.6% |
| 9am | 6.5% | 1.07x | 51.3% |
| 10am | 6.5% | 1.06x | 49.5% |
| 11am | 6.3% | 1.03x | 48.9% |
| 12pm | 5.9% | 0.97x | 47.2% |
| 1pm | 5.5% | 0.90x | 46.4% |
| 2pm | 5.6% | 0.92x | 45.6% |
| 3pm | 5.7% | 0.93x | 46.8% |
| 4pm | 5.6% | 0.92x | 46.3% |
| 5pm | 5.5% | 0.89x | 46.4% |
| 6pm | 5.1% | 0.84x | 45.7% |
| 7pm | 4.7% | 0.77x | 43.1% |
| 8pm | 3.7% | 0.60x | 36.8% |
Three things stand out.
The day only goes downhill. There is no secondary peak. An earlier version of this study, measured per dial rather than per contact, showed a small late-morning bump around eleven — that bump was an artifact of the denominator, and it disappears once each homeowner counts once. The honest shape is a steady decline from the first hour to the last.
The morning premium is real and it is not small. A contact called at eight is reached at roughly one and a half times the rate of a contact called after six. The old per-dial version of this study understated the morning because morning sessions dial more of each contact’s numbers, which inflates a per-dial denominator exactly when agents are working hardest.
The evening is genuinely bad. By seven in the evening you are at three quarters of the daily average, and at eight you are at three fifths. The homeowner who did not pick up for anyone all afternoon is not going to become more receptive after dinner. For a prospecting block that currently sits after 6pm, the data prices a move to anywhere before noon as the single largest free improvement measured in this study.
The weekday pattern
| Weekday | Contact rate | Index |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 6.8% | 1.05x |
| Tuesday | 6.7% | 1.03x |
| Wednesday | 6.5% | 1.00x |
| Thursday | 6.4% | 0.99x |
| Friday | 6.4% | 0.98x |
| Saturday | 5.6% | 0.86x |
| Sunday | 5.1% | 0.79x |
Within the working week, day selection barely matters: Monday to Friday spans about seven percent, with Monday on top. The spread is small enough that a consistent schedule on any weekday beats waiting for the perfect Monday — that is arithmetic, not advice.
The weekend is a different story than the per-dial data used to tell. Measured per contact, Saturday runs 14% below the weekday average and Sunday 21% below. Expired homeowners are simply harder to land a conversation with on the weekend, and the earlier flattering view of weekend calling was another artifact of the per-dial denominator.
The strongest block in the data
For accounts able to protect only one daily block, the data’s strongest is 8am to 11am in the homeowner’s local time — it combines the best rates of the day with enough volume behind the figures to trust them, and each hour earlier inside it measures a few percent better. Whether to work that block, and how early to start it, stays your decision, made against your own compliance determination.
Why the homeowner’s timezone is the whole ballgame
If you are in Denver working a list that is heavily Florida and New York, your 9am is their 11am. Your 4pm is their 6pm, which is one of the worst windows in the data.
This is the most common unforced error we see in expired campaigns. An agent builds a disciplined morning routine in their own timezone, then works a coastal list, and unknowingly spends half of every session dialing into the evening decline.
The arithmetic points one way: a list sorted by the prospect’s timezone — eastern, then central, then mountain, then pacific — keeps a session inside the good window for longer, and the sort costs nothing.
Reading the data
The expired calling windows, as the data orders them
The ranking below is the data’s. What to do with it is yours.
- Strongest measured: 8am to 9am homeowner local time — when to start inside the morning is a decision you make against the calling-window rules that apply to you
- Strong: 9am to noon homeowner local time
- Middling: noon to 6pm
- Weak: after 6pm homeowner local time
- Weakest days: Saturday and Sunday
Where timing stops mattering
Timing is a real lever in an expired campaign — a bigger one than the per-dial version of this data suggested — but it is still not the biggest one.
Moving your block from the evening into the early morning is worth roughly a 40 to 50% relative improvement in contact rate, and evening-to-late-morning about half that.
By comparison, in the same platform data:
- A first attempt reaches an expired contact at nearly twice the rate of a sixth attempt at the same contact
- Keeping daily dial volume per caller ID down rather than pushing past 800 is associated with per-dial contact results nearly three times higher
- Moving from the bottom quartile of accounts to the median is a 2x change
In the data’s own ordering, the list and the caller ID come first; the clock is third.
Frequently asked
What is the best time of day to call expired listings?
Eight in the morning, homeowner’s local time, is the strongest hour in the published data, with 9am to 11am close behind — subject to the calling-window rules that apply to you and your list. Contact rates decline steadily all day, and the 7pm to 8pm stretch is the weakest.
Is Monday really the best day to call expireds?
Monday is the strongest weekday in twelve months of Mojo data, but the working week only spans about seven percent. The real gap is between the week and the weekend, which runs 14 to 21 percent below the weekday average.
Should I call expired listings in the evening?
The data argues against it. Per contact called, rates after 6pm run 16 to 40 percent below the daily average, declining hour by hour.
Does the time zone of the prospect matter?
More than almost anything else about timing. All figures here are calculated in the homeowner’s local time. Working a coastal list from a different timezone without sorting for it is the most common way agents end up dialing in the weakest windows.
How this was measured
Figures come from Mojo Dialer platform call records across roughly 11,400 Real Estate account databases, covering August 2025 through July 2026, limited to contacts sourced from the Mojo Expired lead product. Absolute call volumes are withheld; rates and index values are reported instead.
- Denominator: contacts, not dials. Each hourly and weekday cell counts the distinct contact records called in that cell, and the distinct contacts reached in that cell. Multiple phone numbers or repeat dials for the same homeowner do not inflate the denominator.
- Contact rate is the share of called contacts with a Contact disposition, meaning a live conversation where the last result CONTACT is used by the caller.
- Live answer rate is the share of called contacts where any human picked up (Contact, No Contact, DNC Contact, Bad Number, DNC Number).
- Hours before 8am and after 8pm are excluded from the published table: their volume is low and the pre-8am caller base is small and heavily self-selected.
- The choices in this data are the customers’. Mojo provides configurable dialing technology; the accounts behind these figures chose their own lists, calling windows, cadence and dispositions. The rates describe those choices in aggregate, not behaviour Mojo directs — and “best”/“worst” language throughout describes measured rates, not recommendations.
Known limitations
- Contacts in states that span two timezones are assigned the dominant zone, which introduces a small amount of noise.
- An hourly cell answers a specific question: of the contacts called in this hour, how many were reached in this hour. A homeowner unreached at 9am and reached at 3pm credits the 3pm cell.
- Industry category is self reported at the account level.
- Contact rate measures reaching a person. It does not measure appointments, listings taken, or revenue. A window that produces more conversations is not automatically the window that produces more business.
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