Forty one people called back and I freeze every time they ask my price

41 out of 900 is a strong response and you're wasting it by going quiet for a week.

What I'd say on the phone is a range with a reason attached. "For a parcel like that with gravel access and no utilities, I'm usually somewhere between $900 and $1,400 an acre, and where it lands depends on access and whether there's a building site. I can be more specific after I look at the parcel map, and I can call you back tomorrow." You've given them a number, you've given yourself room, and you've set a next step with a date on it.

Tomorrow is the important part. Not "after I research it." Tomorrow.

Don't put a price in the letter. The letter's only job is to get the phone to ring, and it's doing that at 4.5%. Adding a number gives people something to reject before they've talked to you.

What I would change is the follow-up system rather than the letter. You have 41 conversations and you're managing them in your head. Even a spreadsheet with name, parcel, what they said, and the date you promised to call would keep the four warm ones warm. That's the part that's actually broken.

@solder's question is the one I'd use, but be ready for the answer to be a fantasy number, because a lot of absentee owners priced their land in 2006 or heard something from a cousin. When that happens I don't argue. I say "that may be right for a parcel with paved frontage and utilities, mine come in lower than that, I'll send you what I can do in writing and you can sit on it."

Writing matters. Half the people who say no to a number on the phone call back two months later about the same number on paper.

Asking the thing I'd be embarrassed to ask: how are you valuing these at all in a rural county with almost no closed sales? I understand pulling comps in a subdivision. On 22 acres of woods where the last three sales were between family members, I genuinely don't know what a person looks at.

@compass you look at active listings and then you call the agents on the expired and sold ones and ask what happened. In a non-disclosure state that phone call is the only data source there is, and roughly a dozen states don't publish sale prices, so check which kind you're in before you assume the records will tell you.

After that it's adjustments. Paved versus gravel, deeded access versus a handshake, cleared versus solid timber, whether the soil supports a septic system, whether it's in an agricultural use classification that a buyer could lose. @anchor, build one page per parcel with those lines on it and your offer will come out of the page instead of out of your nerves.

And on the letter question, I've mailed both versions over the years and the priced letters brought fewer calls from people who would have sold cheap. The unpriced letter gets you the woman who has no idea what it's worth and wants it gone, and that's the whole business.