The short answer
The objection we are not selling is seven different sentences wearing one costume: a genuine no, a not yet, a price question in disguise, an existing agent, a renovation first, a campaign that failed last year, and a polite brush off. Work out which one you heard, then answer that one.
What to take away
- We are not selling is seven objections, not one. Work out which you heard before you answer, because the response that works on a genuine no ends the call on a price question.
- The tell is in what they add. A volunteered timeframe is a plan. A conditional is a price question. Speed, before you have finished your reason for calling, is a brush off.
- Ask once, in the version that fits, then stop. The second ask in the same call is what turns a maybe into a no.
- Never mention the other agent, never diagnose a campaign you were not part of, and never tell somebody mid renovation that renovations do not add value.
Why does one sentence need seven answers?
Because it is seven sentences. The words are identical, the meaning is not, and the response that works on one of them is the response that ends the call on another.
A homeowner who says we are not selling is telling you one of seven things, and only one of them is a refusal. Some are timing. One is a price question the homeowner does not want to ask outright. One is a relationship they may not actually have. One is a renovation about to start. One is a bad experience last year that has nothing to do with you. And one is not about property at all: it is a busy person getting a stranger off the phone before the stranger has said why they rang. The words arrive identical. The tell is in the speed, the tense, and whether they volunteer anything you did not ask for.
132
Callback requests out of 6,264 real estate cold calls, against 19 booked appointments. The not yet pile is seven times the yes pile, and it is the one most agents never ring back.
Keller Center for Research, Baylor University, calls placed November 2011
None of this is about pushing harder. Gong Labs, across more than 300 million recorded calls, found the average caller connects on 5.4 per cent of dials and the top quartile on 13.3 per cent (Gong Labs, 2024). That gap is not effort. It is what the caller does with the sentence that comes back.
Which of the seven did you actually hear?
Sort it before you speak. The sorting takes about a second and a half, and it is the only decision in the call that changes the outcome.
| The version | What it usually means | The tell | Your one move |
|---|---|---|---|
| A genuine no, we are happy here | Exactly what it says | Flat, unhurried, no timeframe offered | Send the number in writing and leave |
| Not yet, we are two or three years away | I have a plan and I have thought about it | They volunteer a date you did not ask for | Book the month, ask what changes by then |
| We would sell at the right price | What is it worth, and I am not going to ask | A conditional, usually with a pause after it | Give a range and the comparable behind it |
| We already have an agent | Usually I know someone, not I have signed | Arrives before you finish your reason | Ask signed or know someone, then decide |
| Not selling, we are renovating first | We are about to spend money we hope comes back | They tell you the scope unprompted | Two numbers: as it stands, and as finished |
| We tried last year and it did not sell | I have done this and I did not enjoy it | Shorter, colder, occasionally an edge | One question about the campaign, no diagnosis |
| The polite brush off | I do not know who you are and I am busy | Lands before you have given a reason at all | Give the reason in one sentence, then stop |
The other thing worth holding in your head while you sort is how much of the outcome was decided before you dialled. Three published datasets, three different outcomes, one axis.
Ray White phone day, dials per appraisal
Owned list, Australia, February 2026
Gong, dials per conversation
Cross industry, 2024
Baylor, dials per booked appointment
True cold calls, United States, 2011
Hatched means modelled, not measured
Dials required per outcome, from three separate studies measuring three different things. Baylor counted true cold calls to strangers in the United States in 2011. Gong counted business to business conversations across more than 300 million calls in 2024. The Ray White bar is our arithmetic on the published call and appraisal counts from its February 2026 phone day, so it is drawn hatched.
Read the axis rather than the bars. A cold call to a stranger took 330 dials to produce one appointment. A call into a list the agency already owned took roughly twelve dials to produce an appraisal. No script closes that gap. The list does, and the numbers behind it are in calls per listing in Australia.
What do you say to a genuine no?
You believe them, and you leave something behind. A genuine no is usually the shortest conversation of the seven and the one most likely to produce a listing in four years, because nobody else on the street took it at face value.
Version one: the genuine no
Weekday, inside permitted calling hours, number washed within 30 days. Vale Property and the street are invented, because a made up transcript should not put words in a real agency's mouth.
- Peter
- We are not selling. We have been here twenty two years and we are not going anywhere.
- Agent
- Fair enough. That is most of this street, to be honest.
- Agent
- Can I do one thing before I let you go. I keep a note of what every house on Ardern Street would do in this market. I will send you yours in writing. No visit, nothing to sign, and I will not ring you about it again unless you ask me to.
- Peter
- You can send it.
- Agent
- Done. And if it ever stops being twenty two years, you know who to ring.
The move is the promise not to ring again. It costs you the follow up you were never going to be welcome on anyway, and it buys the one thing you actually wanted from this call, which was permission to send a number to a person who is not selling.
What about not yet, we are two or three years away?
Thank them for the date and then book it. A homeowner who volunteers a timeframe has handed you a scheduled call with consent attached, which is worth more than any appraisal you could argue them into today.
Version two: the timeframe they volunteered
- Dianne
- We are not selling. Maybe in two or three years, once the youngest finishes school.
- Agent
- Two or three years is a plan, not a no. Thanks for telling me, most people do not.
- Agent
- So here is what I will do with it. I will put a note in for the start of that year, ring you once in that month, and not before. Does that work?
- Dianne
- That is fine.
- Agent
- One question so the note is worth something. When you do move, is it bigger, smaller, or the same size closer in?
- Dianne
- Smaller. Probably the coast.
- Agent
- Then I will send you what the coast is doing as well as what your place is doing. Knowing both early is the whole reason to have a number three years out.
That is the entire play. RAIN Group's research across 489 outbound sellers found it takes about eight touches to secure a first meeting and that top performers need five (RAIN Group Center for Sales Research, updated 2026). A date the homeowner nominated is touch two, already booked, already welcome.
Is we would sell at the right price really a price question?
Yes, every time. The conditional is the giveaway: nobody who is genuinely not selling attaches a condition to it. What the homeowner wants is the number, and what they do not want is to be the one who asked for it.
Version three: the price question in disguise
- Sam
- We are not selling. I mean, we would sell at the right price, but we are not looking.
- Agent
- That is a different sentence, and it is the honest one. Most of the street is in exactly that position.
- Agent
- So let me answer the part you actually asked. Forty two Vine Street went at one point four two in April, with one less bathroom than yours. Yours today is somewhere between one point four and one point five two.
- Sam
- That is a wide range.
- Agent
- It is, and that gap is the point. There is a hundred and twenty thousand dollars sitting in it, and the only thing that settles it is twenty minutes inside the house. You would end up with one number instead of two.
Give the range before you ask for anything, and give the comparable that produced it. An agent who holds the number back until the appraisal is booked has turned news into a hostage, and homeowners hear that in about a second.
What do you say when they already have an agent?
Find out whether it is true before you respond to it. In most calls this sentence means I know someone, not I have signed an agency agreement, and those two situations need opposite behaviour from you.
Version four: we already have an agent
- Rob
- We are not selling, and we have got an agent anyway.
- Agent
- No worries. Just so I do not ring you when I should not: are you signed with them, or is it more that you know someone?
- Rob
- We know someone. My wife's cousin does it.
- Agent
- That is a good position to be in and I am not going to try to talk you out of it. One thing and then I will leave it alone. When the time comes, get two appraisals rather than one, even if you list with him. A second number costs you nothing and it is the only way to know the first one was right.
- Rob
- That is fair enough.
- Agent
- I will send you mine now so you have already got one of them. Nothing to sign.
If the answer is signed, stop, and say out loud that you are stopping. Ask when the agreement runs to and whether you can ring the week after. Nothing you say about the other agent helps you, and the homeowner is listening for exactly that.
Renovating, burnt last year, or just getting rid of you?
The last three versions get mistaken for each other constantly, because all three arrive with an explanation attached. The explanations point in three different directions.
Version five: we are renovating first
This homeowner is about to spend money they hope comes back, and they usually tell you the scope without being asked, which is the tell. They are not refusing an appraisal. They are telling you the appraisal they want is a different one.
Version six: we tried last year and it did not sell
Shorter, colder, sometimes with an edge on it. This is the only version where the homeowner is defending something rather than declining something, and the fastest way to lose the call is to explain to them what went wrong.
Version six: it was on last year and it did not sell
- Helen
- We are not selling. We had it on last year for five months and nothing happened.
- Agent
- That is a rough five months. I am not going to tell you why it did not sell, because I was not there.
- Agent
- Can I ask you one thing instead. When it came off, was it the price, the timing, or the way it was being run that you were unhappiest about?
- Helen
- The price. They talked us up, then spent four months talking us down.
- Agent
- Then the only useful thing I can give you is a number I will put in writing and stand behind, whether or not you ever use me. Would you take that?
Version seven: the polite brush off
It arrives before you have said why you rang, and it agrees with a proposition you never put. That is the tell, and it means you have not been refused. You have been interrupted.
Version seven: the polite brush off
- Voice
- Yeah, no, we are not selling, thanks.
- Agent
- No problem at all. I had not actually got to why I rang, so that one is on me. Ten seconds and I am gone.
- Agent
- Forty two Vine Street sold on Saturday, ninety thousand over what the owners expected. I am ringing the street because most people around here are carrying a valuation in their head that is a year old.
- Voice
- Right. What did it go for, sorry?
That last line is why the brush off is worth one sentence. The homeowner was not saying no to an appraisal. They were saying no to an unexplained stranger, and the reason for calling is what removes the stranger.
What does asking once actually mean here?
One ask, in the version that fits, then stop. Sorting the seven is not a way of getting more attempts out of a call. It is a way of spending the single attempt you have on the objection that was actually in front of you.
Ray White's network booked 36,000 appraisals across three phone days in 2025 and 2,337 of them became listings, a conversion of 6.5 per cent (Elite Agent, reporting Ray White, February 2026). Nearly thirty four thousand of those homeowners were not selling. The number they walked away holding is the part still working a year later.
It is also why the diary date beats the follow up count. HubSpot's survey of 379 sales professionals found 55 per cent stop after three to five attempts (HubSpot, 2025). The useful reading of that is not call more. It is that an undated intention to ring back is the thing that quietly expires.
| Version | Do not say | What they hear |
|---|---|---|
| A genuine no | Everything is for sale at the right price | You did not believe a word I just said |
| Not yet | What would make you move sooner? | He is trying to talk me out of my own plan |
| The right price | What is your number? | He wants me to bid against myself |
| Already have an agent | Who is it? Are they any good? | He is about to run down someone I know |
| Renovating first | Renovations do not add value anyway | He has never seen the house |
| Tried last year | The market has changed since then | The last one opened with that too |
| The polite brush off | I understand, but if I could just have two minutes | This is going to be more than two minutes |
ListingLine is an AI voice agent that calls an Australian real estate agent's farm area in the agent's name, at A$2.00 per connected call. Our agent branches across these seven, because the sentence is the same every time and the answer never is. The full call that sits around them is in the appraisal call script, and what gets checked before any number is dialled is in our compliance notes.
Common questions
- How do I tell a genuine no from a brush off in two seconds?
- Position in the call. A genuine no arrives after you have given your reason, and it usually carries a detail: how long they have been there, or where the kids are at school. A brush off arrives before the reason, agrees with something you have not said, and adds nothing at all. If nothing was added, you have not been refused yet. You have been interrupted.
- Should I ring back the homeowner who said two or three years?
- Ring on the date they gave you, in the month they named, and not before. The permission is attached to that date and it does not transfer to a random Tuesday in between. Put their own words in the diary note, so the opening line of the next call can be the sentence they said to you, which is the only opener you will ever have that the homeowner wrote themselves.
- Is it worth appraising someone who says they are not selling?
- Yes, on the evidence. Ray White booked 36,000 appraisals from its 2025 phone days and 2,337 became listings, so roughly nineteen in twenty appraisals did not convert that year. That is not a failure rate, it is the shape of the job. The appraisal is how a homeowner who is not selling ends up holding your number rather than somebody else's on the day they are.
- What if they ask what the neighbour got straight after saying no?
- Treat it as version three and answer it properly. A homeowner who asks what the neighbour got has stopped defending and started shopping, and the question is the closest thing to a buying signal a prospecting call produces. Give them the figure, give them the difference between that house and theirs, and let the gap in your own range be the reason to book twenty minutes.
- Do these branches work when a voice agent makes the call?
- They work better in one narrow sense: a machine will actually branch. A human under mild rejection tends to run the same reframe on all seven, because the reframe is the line they trust. The harder part for a voice agent is hearing the difference between a conditional and a refusal inside a sentence four words long, and that is a listening problem rather than a scripting one.
- What do I do if they have a signed agency agreement already?
- Stop, and say out loud that you are stopping. Tell them you will not talk to a vendor who is under an agency agreement, ask when it runs to, and ask whether you can ring in the week after that if the property is still on the market. You lose nothing you had, and you become the only agent who behaved well while their listing belonged to somebody else.
Sources
- 1Has Cold Calling Gone Cold?. Keller Center for Research, Baylor University, Calls placed November 2011, published September 2012.
- 2The hidden power of cold calling: insights from 300M calls. Gong Labs, Dataset of more than 300 million calls, published 18 July 2024.
- 3How many touchpoints does it take to make a sale?. RAIN Group Center for Sales Research, 489 outbound sellers, Study year not published, article updated 11 June 2026.
- 42025 State of Cold Calling Report. HubSpot, survey of 379 sales professionals, Fieldwork 2025.
- 5Ray White network books 12,000 appraisals in 12 hour phone blitz. Elite Agent, reporting Ray White, Event 26 February 2026, with Ray White's calendar 2025 counts.
Written by
Jason
Founder, ListingLine
Builds the AI voice agent that ListingLine customers point at their farm area. Spends most of his week reading call transcripts, which is an unusual and fairly grim way to learn what Australian homeowners will and will not talk about on the phone.