I have 212 addresses and no idea what a lead is actually worth

Been driving the same four neighborhoods since October, mostly older ranch stock built in the fifties. My list is 212 addresses with photos, and I've pulled owner names off the county assessor site for about 140 of them. Maybe 30 have something obviously wrong, tarps, boarded window, grass to the knee.

I started this thinking I'd buy one myself eventually. I don't have the money yet and probably won't for a year. So the question I keep landing on is whether the list is worth anything to somebody who does have the money, and what I'd even ask for it.

What I don't know: whether investors want the raw list at all, or only want it after I've called people and found out who'd sell. Calling 140 strangers is a completely different job than driving around with a phone camera and I'm not sure I'm any good at it.

There's a guy at the local meetup who buys about a house a month. I could just ask him. I keep not asking him because I don't know what number to say when he asks what I want, and saying a stupid number in front of someone feels worse than not asking.

So: is a 212 address list with photos and owner names worth money as it sits, or is it worth nothing until somebody's had a conversation with the owner?

Answer

1marcus_hale41CG4A

The raw list is worth close to nothing and you should be a little relieved about that. Names and addresses are a database query. Anyone with a subscription can pull every fifties ranch in your four neighborhoods with an absentee owner and code violations in about ten minutes, and it costs them under a hundred dollars.

What isn't a database query is your photos plus the fact that you've watched these streets for five months. You know which tarp went up in November and is still there. You know which house had a dumpster and then nothing happened. That's observation over time and no data vendor sells it.

So the value is in the annotation, not the count. Ten addresses with a note saying what changed and when beats 212 addresses with nothing.

4 replies

3mikeoconnell7SP2APRO6

Ask the guy at the meetup. Not with a price, with a question: "what makes a lead worth paying for to you?" People love answering that and you'll learn more in ten minutes than in another month of driving. Then you'll know what number to say.

2tylerbrooks9PassivePRO5

The plain version of what canton said: you get paid for the phone call. The driving is the cheap part and everybody can do it.

I'd pick the 30 with something obviously wrong and work only those. Thirty conversations is a manageable number for someone who's never done it. You'll get maybe three people who'll talk and one who's actually thinking about selling, and that one is the thing you take to your meetup guy. It's slow and it works, and it's a lot less discouraging than staring at 140.

1jessreyes12AU1APRO8

I'll ask the thing bramble is dancing around, because I've done the same dance. What do you actually say when the owner picks up?

I froze the first eight times. What got me past it was writing one sentence and saying only that sentence: I buy houses in this neighborhood and I noticed yours, are you open to an offer. Then shut up. Half of them hang up and it costs you nothing.

And on the price question, if you bring your meetup guy one real motivated seller, he'll tell you what it's worth to him and it'll be a bigger number than whatever you were embarrassed to ask for the spreadsheet.