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Posted over 9 years ago

Using ListSource to Find (Potentially) Motivated Sellers

In these early stages of developing my business, I find that I constantly have to check myself and avoid trying to reinvent the wheel in regard to marketing.

There are several 'distressed homeowner marketing stars' sashaying about the hallowed halls of BP, and they never fail in producing fantastic advice, either in response to posts or on the podcasts.  What I have been able to glean from their knowledge and experience is, in general: lead generation from a direct mail marketing campaign is heavily dependent on the pieces of mail delivered.  Granted, there are variations based on the part of the country you reside in (San Francisco is going to be much tighter than, say, Flint MI, for example...I presume at least), but in general, if one wants to generate X number of leads, then Y number of mailers need to be distributed.  

With this in mind, let's go build a direct mailing list (I will use listsource.com for this task).  First let's start with geographic information.  I am going to start with the broad area which I will be targeting, in this case, I'm using "County" as my variable:

Normal 1405352546 01   County

Keep in mind that I can go back and amend many of these values later in the process to refine my results, but initially I want to see what kind of numbers I get.

Next, we will move to the Property tab.

First, I will filter for the specific features of properties I am looking to target: 1-3 Bathrooms, 2-4 Bedrooms, 1000-2500 Square Feet, SFR.  You can see the results here:

Normal 1405352854 02   Property 1

Hey, we only have 257k to choose from...that's pretty manageable! </sarcasm>

Here is my favorite part, filtering for % of equity in the property.  

Side note: there are a lot (and I mean a LOT) of old people in Allegheny County.  I'm too lazy to confirm this factoid, but apparently it is/was 2nd only to Dade County in average age...it's easy to find an early-bird special around here.

With this in mind, many of the most accomplished marketers suggest using 50%+ percent equity as a default value.  Let's see what kind of results employing that variable produces:

Normal 1405353252 02   Property 2

Great, now we have managed to drill down to under 100k.

I ignore the "Demographics" and "Foreclosure" (as well as the "Mortgage" tab) and move right to the "Options" tab.  Here is where the eventual pot of gold lies.  "Owner Occupied Status".  Click the "Absentee Owned" button.  Find a way to send mail to this list.  Retire.

Ok, MAAAAYBE it's not quite that simple, but everything else was just a precursor to this point.  These are the people I want to mail to and have the highest probability (based on the variables available from this source of data) of being a distressed/motivated seller.  For what it's worth, the jury is out on whether or not to include "corporate owned properties".  I have spoken with several people who suggested that they have obtained viable leads from this category of owner, so I'm going to check the "No Preference" tab to include these records.  Additionally, though it did not alter my count, I click the "Both Mailing and Property Address Complete" button.  Here are the results:

Normal 1405353938 03   Options

Now my list has been whittled down from 485k to 16.5k, which is still a considerable number for someone starting out with a limited/starter marketing budget.

Now I have the ability go back through the variables I have selected and refine them to produce a more cost-effective list.  

The city of Pittsburgh has a number of culturally diverse (sic) neighborhoods that, depending on the tenor of the real estate market, may or may not be appropriate targets for my marketing efforts.  Thus, I can start filtering my results based on Zip Codes or municipalities/wards.  I think my first refinement would be to increase the minimum % of equity.  

Upping the value to 75% STILL returns 14k+ records.  Maybe my perception of this situation is convoluted, but this number seems promising.  

I have posed this question elsewhere, but is there a point of diminishing return for min% equity in a home?  For example, if someone owned a property outright, would they be less "motivated" to sell than someone who still is paying off a mortgage?  I can see both sides of the argument; however, I think that receiving a check with no obligations would be attractive for someone in a bad spot vs. having to chip off part of that check to someone else.  Please chime in if you have any thoughts on this matter.

This is an outline for my plan to build a direct marketing list in my area.  I will be tinkering with the variables to see if I can reduce the size to under 2000, as I believe that would provide me with a very concentrated pool of properties to target.

Please feel free to leave comments,  I am open to any/all ideas.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

-J


Comments (6)

  1. soooo.... did you retire? ;) 5 years later and I am finding value in this post - thanks!

  2. Jumping in a bit late to this conversation but rather than doing % equity, could you filter by loan to value ratio, taking the combination approach? So you could sort for properties that have no greater than 50% loan to value, considering ALL loans on the property? 


  3. Very helpful! I am new and just tinkering around with building a list. Thanks, guys this was extremely helpful! 


  4. Gosh, I know I'm reviving this old post, but I'm also interested in learning more about filters on ListSource and how to use them effectively.  Maybe someone will come back and chime in again!  Great write-up!


  5. You've actually seen folks sashaying around BP? Man, I would love to see that!

    Over all a good article that I plan on referring people to. Just a few tips I'd like to throw in after having downloaded hundreds of thousands of records from ListSource.

    Yes, do always begin with Geography, but I would recommend that you already have it broken down to your best zips. ListSource can be buggy at times and when you change your geography mid stream, occassionally the site will choke and you'll need to start over. In light of this, I would suggest saving your search criteria periodically so that if you do need to begin again, you can have most of your criteria intact.

    Secondly, I'd avoid any unnecessary filters. For instance, you mention filtering for 1-3 bathrooms. I've not seen any houses with less than one, and if there were more than 3 that would be an asset. Data services get their info from public records, and public records are notoriously inconsistent. If you filter for say, bathrooms, and a record does not have that data (even though the house most certainly does), it will return a zero. So we want to use as few filters as possible to avoid the zeroeffect.

    I would suggest building your list with this progression:

    1. Geography
    2. Options: Absentee, exclude corps, Address Complete
    3. Property Type: Use Detailed property types or run the risk of getting condos in your SFRs
    4. Total Assessed Value Plus or minus 75k of median home value
    5. Equity Percentage: Bear in mind this will miss HELOCS and second Mortgages

    Once you've done that, you can narrow or loosen the criteria to get the number you want. Always save your lists with unique names you will remember for future suppression.


      1. I was in a somewhat foul mood when I got home from work this afternoon when I receive an email about a comment being left on my blog.  BEHOLD!  @Jerry Puckett  has come calling...and he typing some words about using this post for reference?!?  Ayeayeaye.

        Fantastic input Jerry.  Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by, read, AND comment.  You have (unknowingly) provided me with quality material for a future post.  A little Q&A with you, if you would be so kind.

        I had concerns about the Equity %.  How often do you find that there are additional loans (%-wise)?  Regardless, is it safe to assume that having 100% equity is, in general, good for what we are trying to accomplish here?

        Does the order in which I enter variables into ListSource alter the results?  You suggest a different progression than what I used.  Would my results (using the same variables) have been different had I used a different order?

        Let's say I want to start with a $750-$1000/month budget, what is a good ballpark for how many results I should be aiming for?

        Thanks again Jerry.