How Fresh is Listsource?

Question

Hello Everyone,

We finally took the plunge into yellow letters after purchasing 5 other properties in various ways.

We got the names and addresses from ListSource.  Absentee owners.  50%+ equity.  Specific area.  1900 names.

The yellow letters all went out on Monday and were obviously received today.  It has been 2.5 hours since the first call came in.  There have been 9 calls so far.  FOUR of the calls have been from people stating that they have sold the home in question.

Is it normal to have such a high percentage of people who have sold their properties already? (And those are the ones who decided to make the courtesy call...)

Just looking for a reality check. Ideas?

Jim

Account Closed · Answer

Seems high. I found ListSource for Austin to not be as useful as I thought it would be. The advantage is that it gives you easily formatted addresses to mail to , but I've yet to find a source that gives me the detail I want that is accurate and timely. The list is out there somewhere, maybe someone will post a source they've been happy with. BY the way, I've tried over sized Post Card mailings and that was a compete waste of time and money. Out of 5,000 mailed I got one call.

James H. · Answer

It is very simple.  It is basically the standard template from Yellow Letters Complete's website.  We add that we and handy and do not mind getting our hands dirty.  So, we are willing to consider a home in any condition.

Account Closed · Answer

Do you mind sharing the general gist of what you say in your mailer? Your response rate is higher than what I've seen just cruising on BP, and I'd appreciate some pointers!

Troy Lilly · Answer

Any "Listsource" list is a good idea in concept for a list, but because of overuse, it has oversaturated the market place. I focus on Probate lists and Absentee Code Violation Lists. Check my last post in the forums to see the importance in focusing differently.

James H. · Answer

Sean, I think you are correct on #1.  For one of my counties, I just got an email from someone stating that he had sold his home in October of last year.  7 months ago.  The online county records concur.  So, at least for this county, the data is at least 7 months old.

We're up to over 3% response in less than 24 hours now.

Sean OToole · Answer

A couple of thoughts:

1. Currency on public records from services varies a lot by county, primarily because of one of two things: the county is too small to justify abstracting data on a daily basis, or the county itself is difficult to get data from on a timely basis. There are differences between vendors as well, but if its a decent vendor, like listsource, its going to primarily be these two issues.

2. Most direct mail fails because of the message, not the list. If you got 1 call our of 5000, I'd focus on what you said, and how you said it way more than the list. Not saying that you couldn't improve the list too, just that it is probably not your primary problem.

James H. · Answer

Ken -

1:5000.  That is terrible!  We are using Yellow Letters Complete.  We sent machine printed yellow letters with hand addressed envelopes and regular first class stamps.  The price was just over $1 each.

At the end of the day, we got 25 or so more calls.  Two of them were "already sold."  I suppose that we just happened to get most of the "already sold" calls at the beginning.  I still would like to know the age of the list, though.

It will be interesting to see what the response is today.  But, the first day produced a > 2% response rate.  We are happy with that.  Deals?  Not sure...  One hot possibility.  Quite a few curiosity seekers.  Some bad deals.

The other thing is that I am not sure what to do with people who ask to be taken off of the mailing.  I can take them off for the next follow-up in 4 to 6 weeks as well as the one after that.  But, once I repurchase a refreshed list in a few months, it could be quite a challenge to purge it.  How do others deal with this?

Jim