How can I find homes with equity and send letters?

How can I find homes with equity and send letters?

Real Estate Agent · Charleston, SC · Member since 2013 · 424 posts · 99 votes

Back in the day, there was a way to look in any specific area and find houses that had (or likely had) equity in them. Then there was a guy who would take your address list and make letters and little envelopes that looked handwritten to get them opened by people with equity. I did this as an RE agent ten years ago and I had an overwhelming response. Is this still possible or in existence?

0Reply
52 views

Most Popular Reply

Investor · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2015 · 270 posts · 217 votes
1y

YellowLetterHQ

Buy their listsource subscription for a discount on listsource.com leads and they can do the mailing for you too.

See this reply in the discussion

12 Replies

Jump to latestLatest
  • Investor · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2015 · 270 posts · 217 votes
    1y

    YellowLetterHQ

    Buy their listsource subscription for a discount on listsource.com leads and they can do the mailing for you too.

    • Real Estate Agent · Charleston, SC · Member since 2013 · 424 posts · 99 votes
      1y
      Quote from @Sam B.:

      YellowLetterHQ

      Buy their listsource subscription for a discount on listsource.com leads and they can do the mailing for you too.


       Thank you! Don't have my license reactivated again yet, suffering through Kaplans real estate course for my education requirements but I plan on knocking it out of the park with this method again. If I sell just two houses by years end I'd be giddy.

    • Real Estate Agent · Charleston, SC · Member since 2013 · 424 posts · 99 votes
      1y
      Quote from @Sam B.:

      YellowLetterHQ

      Buy their listsource subscription for a discount on listsource.com leads and they can do the mailing for you too.


       Aw man, list source excludes my two markets. Kansas and South Carolina lmao.

  • Investor · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2015 · 270 posts · 217 votes
    1y

    That sucks. What I do here is just call downtown and ask them to send me a spreadsheet of all the parcels in the city and they do it. It's free too which is nice. But it does not have equity data. Might be worth a shot.

    • Real Estate Agent · Charleston, SC · Member since 2013 · 424 posts · 99 votes
      1y
      Quote from @Sam B.:

      That sucks. What I do here is just call downtown and ask them to send me a spreadsheet of all the parcels in the city and they do it. It's free too which is nice. But it does not have equity data. Might be worth a shot.


       Does that's show you when the mortgage was originated on the parcel so you can approximate how much equity they *may* have? 

    • Investor · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2015 · 270 posts · 217 votes
      1y
      Quote from @Jason Eyerly:
      Quote from @Sam B.:

      That sucks. What I do here is just call downtown and ask them to send me a spreadsheet of all the parcels in the city and they do it. It's free too which is nice. But it does not have equity data. Might be worth a shot.


       Does that's show you when the mortgage was originated on the parcel so you can approximate how much equity they *may* have? 

      No that doesn't include anything about liens and even if I had those it would require some serious data crunching. Even paid providers like listsource can only do rough estimates. Maybe propstream or some other provider has your areas but I've only ever used listsource for paid data so I couldn't recommend anyone.

      You could try to approximate it using last sale date which is generally easier to find. The list I get doesn't have that either. But this is just my county anyway. Yours might be better or worse.

  • Specialist · Georgetown, TX · Member since 2018 · 48 posts · 24 votes
    1y

    Hey Jason, 

    Propstram is a great platform to use. You can find, analyze, and market to homeowners all from this one platform. They even have a "High Equity" button so that you easily drill into those homes if that is what you would like to focus on. 

    However, once your license is re-activated you should have access to tools that help you access the data though your broker or local association. Once you are able to create your own mailing lists as an agent it might be more economical to use one of the many marketing companies that target agents to handle your direct mail campaign. 

    • Real Estate Agent · Charleston, SC · Member since 2013 · 424 posts · 99 votes
      1y
      Quote from @Emily Valenzuela:

      Hey Jason, 

      Propstram is a great platform to use. You can find, analyze, and market to homeowners all from this one platform. They even have a "High Equity" button so that you easily drill into those homes if that is what you would like to focus on. 

      However, once your license is re-activated you should have access to tools that help you access the data though your broker or local association. Once you are able to create your own mailing lists as an agent it might be more economical to use one of the many marketing companies that target agents to handle your direct mail campaign. 


      Thanks for the info. I'll definitely need to do some of their tutorials or webinars to learn how to use this tool. I imagine the MLS is more sophisticated from when I last left it as well.

    • Investor · Get yourself trained before doing something inadvisable. · Member since 2024 · 3k+ posts · 1k+ votes
      11mo
      Quote from @Jason Eyerly:
      Quote from @Emily Valenzuela:

      Hey Jason, 

      Propstram is a great platform to use. You can find, analyze, and market to homeowners all from this one platform. They even have a "High Equity" button so that you easily drill into those homes if that is what you would like to focus on. 

      However, once your license is re-activated you should have access to tools that help you access the data though your broker or local association. Once you are able to create your own mailing lists as an agent it might be more economical to use one of the many marketing companies that target agents to handle your direct mail campaign. 


      Thanks for the info. I'll definitely need to do some of their tutorials or webinars to learn how to use this tool. I imagine the MLS is more sophisticated from when I last left it as well.

      Since you've been out of the game for awhile, you would probably benefit from a tutor who would take you through the process. Getting occasional answers on BP is helpful, but slow and tedious. If you would like some sources specific to your questions, drop me a line.  
  • Flipper/Rehabber · Bloomfield CT · Member since 2020 · 1k+ posts · 408 votes
    1y

    This is a feature of prop stream which you can use to build your lists

  • Flipper/Rehabber · Bloomfield CT · Member since 2020 · 1k+ posts · 408 votes
    1y

    Letters don't have the same response rate as it did pre social media 

    • Real Estate Agent · Charleston, SC · Member since 2013 · 424 posts · 99 votes
      1y
      Quote from @James McGovern:

      Letters don't have the same response rate as it did pre social media 

       Social media was certainly around in 2018. Not only that but there are many homeowners who are not around on social media or are very inactive and prefer a good ol fashioned letter with a phone number to call. I did sign up for propwire/stream to have a trial and see what it's about but there's so much information and tools on it that I feel very overwhelmed and am unsure how to use it. 

Join the conversationCreate a free account to reply, vote on answers and follow this thread.