After you log an address, is knocking ever the right first contact?

Question

Slow decisions are my whole personality so I've been sitting on 60 addresses for two months without contacting anyone, which is its own answer. Before I do something, I want to hear the room on which first touch people actually use.

Mail. Cheapest per contact, easiest to do 300 at once, and it gives the owner time and privacy to decide. Also easiest to ignore, and if the owner isn't at the mailing address on record, it never arrives.

Skip trace and call or text. Fastest feedback, you find out in two days whether the property is even in play. It also puts you in the middle of rules on unsolicited contact that differ by state and are being tightened, which is a real cost in attention and possibly in exposure, and I understand I'd need to confirm the current requirements for my state in writing before I did any of it.

Knock the door. Highest response rate of the three by every account I've read. It's also the one where I'm standing in front of a stranger's house telling them I noticed their property looks bad, which some people here will call the straightest version of the pitch and others will call the reason this channel has a reputation.

Or hand the whole list to someone with a marketing operation and take a cut.

I genuinely don't know which of these I'd want to receive, which is usually how I decide things and it's not helping here.

renee_dubois · Answer

Mail. Every unit I own has taught me that the person you want to buy from is embarrassed about the property, and an embarrassed person does not want to answer the door to a stranger who has come specifically because their house looks bad. Mail lets them respond on a day they've decided to.

The knock advocates are right about response rate. They're measuring responses, not deals closed at a price you like.

diane_kowalski · Answer

On land I knock the neighbors before I contact the owner, which isn't on your list. The neighbor knows whether the owner died, whether there's a dispute, and often has the phone number. Nobody is embarrassed about somebody else's parcel.

raj_mehta14 · Answer

@arbor that's clever and slightly unsettling. Does the neighbor then tell the owner someone was asking about their land?

mitchell_ray4 · Answer

Voted knock. I've spent fifteen years knocking on doors to look at people's furnaces and the thing I'd tell you is that it's a skill and it's not about courage. It's about the first eight words and about standing back from the door rather than on top of it. If you open with the condition of their house you'll get the reputation you're worried about. If you open with "I buy houses on this street, is yours something you'd ever consider selling," it's a normal conversation and half of them say no and mean it.

60 addresses sitting for two months is the expensive option, @anchor. Two of those are probably listed by now.

sonia_alvarez · Answer

Mail, and my reason is documentation. If you ever want to work with a lender or bring in a partner on these deals, a mail campaign is a record. You can show what went out, when, to whom, and what came back. Calls and knocks live in your head and in whatever you remembered to type afterward.

That's a lending-side bias and I know it. But the rules on unsolicited contact are moving, and the channel where I can produce the exact thing I sent is the channel I'd rather be able to explain later.

After you log an address, is knocking ever the right first contact?

5 replies