Twice as many agents as listings. How the listing picks the agent
A Realtor.com executive put it in one line: there are twice as many real estate agents as there are listings. Existing-home sales landed just above 4 million in 2025, the lowest since 1995. In that market, you are not choosing listings. Listings are choosing agents, and the choosing happens on a phone screen before anyone calls you.
The arithmetic of two agents per listing
The ratio comes from a Realtor.com study of agents, and the same study found 60% of agents call lead generation their top challenge. Experienced agents in that survey added a second complaint: the big listing sites compete with them for the same seller. So the competition is not only the agent down the street. It is also the portal that wants the seller to click a button instead of calling a person.
The supply side is not helping. Sales were just above 4 million in 2025, and the typical Realtor closed nine sides. The Inman pipeline tracker found pipelines thinning through most of 2026, with only 34% of agents expecting their listing pipeline to grow over the next year and 44% expecting about the same. Nobody is predicting a flood of new listings to spread around. The ones that exist will go to someone.
What the seller does before the first call
A seller who is three months from listing does not start by interviewing agents. They start by looking at them. They remember two or three names: the agent a neighbor used, the one whose sign they see, the one who sold the house two doors down. Then they look up all three on a phone, usually at night, usually without telling anyone.
What they find decides who gets the call. 73% of Realtors maintain a business website, so the website is a tie. Most of them have one. The listings page is a tie too, since most agents in a market show the same MLS feed. The reviews are close. The thing that separates three plausible names is the social profile, because that is where the seller can see whether you are active now, this month, or whether the last post is a Thanksgiving graphic from two years ago.
This is where the seller's logic is harsher than it looks. They are not grading your content. They are checking a pulse. An agent with a recent video and a face attached reads as working. An agent with a dormant profile reads as retired, or busy, or not sure. The seller does not know which. They just move to the next name.
What video does in that moment
NAR data cited by RealEstateAgentLeads puts 73% of homeowners as more likely to list with an agent who uses video. The reason is not that homeowners love video. It is that video answers the question they are asking at 10 p.m. on the couch. Is this person real, current, and going to be able to show my house?
A market update video where you say what homes in their ZIP are doing this month answers all three in 40 seconds. A listing tour of a house they drove past answers it in 30. Neither requires a sales pitch. The seller is already pitching themselves on you. You are just confirming the signal.
And the bar is low. Only 26% of agents consistently use video on every listing. In most markets, two of the three names the seller looks up will have nothing recent. The one with a video from this month does not have to be polished. It has to exist. The field guide for agents who hate the camera goes into why that is harder than it sounds, and what to do about it.
The old signals that stopped working
It is worth being clear about what no longer separates you, because that is where the budget usually goes. 62% of Realtors got no 2025 business from open houses, and 81% got none from virtual tours. Both are fine ways to serve a listing you already have. Neither is how the next listing finds you.
Meanwhile, 64% of experienced agents spend $3,000 or more a year on marketing, and only 9% get marketing support from their brokerage. So the money is being spent. The question is whether it is buying the thing the seller is actually checking for. Postcards reach the mailbox. Portal placement reaches buyers. Neither one shows up when a seller types your name into Instagram at night. The listing video cost breakdown runs the per-listing math on where that $3,000 goes and what a fairer model would look like.
One more place to look is the half of your business that is already decided. Repeat business is 49% of transactions for agents with 16 or more years. Those sellers do the same search. They remember you fondly, and then they check whether you are still working. The 50% most agents forget to market to is about that group, and they need the same pulse check as a stranger.
What to put in front of the seller
If you want to be the name that survives the 10 p.m. search, the list is short. A profile with a recent video of your face. A market update from this month with real local numbers. A listing tour from your last listing, even if it closed. A profile video that says who you are in 30 seconds without a script. The buyer side has its own version of this: the agreement conversation, done before the meeting.
None of this generates a lead on its own, and this post will not pretend it does. What it does is keep you from being eliminated before the conversation starts. In a market with two agents per listing, not being eliminated is most of the job. The 15 real estate video marketing tips on this site cover the rest.
Where MirriFi fits
MirriFi keeps the pulse going. One recording session of about fifteen minutes on your phone, and then monthly market updates with licensed local data, Topic videos, listing tours, and a Personal Branding Pack arrive in your face and voice without you going back on camera. It does not generate leads. It makes sure that when a seller looks you up, there is something recent to find. See it on your own face, no card, no call.