When forty callbacks come in from a rural land mail campaign, how to actually answer the price question

A strong response rate like that gets wasted by going quiet for a week. The right move on the phone is a range with a reason attached. "For a parcel like that with gravel access and no utilities, pricing usually falls 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 looking at the parcel map, and can follow up tomorrow." That gives the seller a number, leaves room to work with, and sets a next step with a date attached. Tomorrow is the important part. Not "after I research it." Tomorrow.

Leaving a price out of the letter is the right call. The letter's only job is to get the phone to ring, and it is doing that at 4.5 percent. Adding a number gives people something to reject before they have talked to anyone. The follow-up system is the part worth changing rather than the letter. Forty one conversations cannot be managed from memory. Even a simple spreadsheet with name, parcel, what was said, and the date a callback was promised would keep the warm leads warm. That is the part that is actually broken.

@mitchell_ray4's question is the one worth using, 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, do not argue the number. Say something like, that may be right for a parcel with paved frontage and utilities, this one comes in lower, and offer to send the number in writing so they 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.

@jessreyes12 the answer is to look at active listings and then 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 of state this is before assuming the records will tell you. After that it comes down to adjustments. Paved versus gravel, deeded access versus a handshake, cleared versus solid timber, whether the soil supports a septic system, whether it sits in an agricultural use classification a buyer could lose. @ehernandez74, building one page per parcel with those lines on it lets the offer come out of the page instead of out of nerves. And on the letter question, pricing both ways over time tends to show the same pattern. Priced letters bring fewer calls from people who would have sold cheap, while the unpriced letter reaches the owner who has no idea what it's worth and just wants it gone, and that is often where the real business is.