900 letters, $1,140, one contract

Numbers first, because that's the only part that transfers.

Pull was absentee owners, 15 years or more of tenure, estimated equity above 60 percent, single family, no listing history in the last five years. That came back 3,900 records. I cut it to 900 by dropping anything held by an entity with more than two properties in the county, on the theory that those owners price like investors and I didn't want to pay for the stamp. Two mail touches, plain white envelope, hand-addressed for the first one, printed for the second. All in with printing, postage and the list fee it was about 63 cents a piece, $1,140 for 1,800 pieces.

41 calls back across nine weeks, most of them in the ten days after touch two. 6 of those went past hello into a real conversation about price. 1 signed. 214k on a house that comps around 300k with roughly 45k of work, and I assigned it for 12k to a flipper I'd met at a title company closing three months earlier.

The part that nearly killed it: the owner's brother lived two states away and had opinions. I found that out on day 11, after I'd already committed to my buyer. I should have asked who else needs to agree to this on the first call. Cost me two weeks of nail biting and a 3k haircut on the fee to keep the timeline.

What I'd keep: the entity filter, and the second touch. Nothing came from touch one.

1 reply

2carlos_nunezActive

41 callbacks on 900 addresses is 4.5 percent and that's roughly triple what I get, so what was in the letter? Mine is the standard three sentences and a phone number and I'm at 1.4 percent on a similar pull.

Also the thing that sounds easy and isn't: you had a buyer from a title closing three months back. If that guy is out of pocket that week, does the 12k become 6k, or does the contract die? I've had two assignments where the only real buyer for the property was the one I already knew, and both times I found that out at day 20 with a hard earnest money deposit sitting there. Your entity filter is smart and I'm stealing it, but I'd want to know what the fee looks like on the version where you're cold-shopping it.