Listability & Listsource still the best absentee list providers?
Hello,
I am currently a virtual assistant, managing RVM campaigns, and answering calls from various marketing methods, for agents, wholesalers, and investors. They've inspired my interest in wholesaling in my backyard, Los Angeles. I am looking to see what list providers have the best results with absentee lists. It looks like Listability and Listsource but just thought I would ask again myself. Thank you.
Welcome Nakia,
ListSource has worked best for us. We use it both personally and for our customers.
An ideal list vendor would give you the ability to differentiate between local, in state, and out of state absentee owners, as those groups have different needs and your message should be different to each. You should also make sure that they offer a good equity estimate so you can target owners with the ability to sell at your target purchase price. Also helpful is age criteria, as again your message to younger owners should be different then to older owners. Vacancy is another good criteria, both on the situs address and on the owners mailing address - there likely won't be many hits on that criteria, but it's obviously useful. From there most will have standard criteria around property type, estimated value, etc that you can use to not waste money targeting properties you aren't interested in.
@Nakia Jay if you're looking to run a RVM campaign, then ListSource won't have phone numbers and you'll have to spend money getting your list skip traced. REI Market Pro will have cell phones for a price less than ListSource.
It is funny, because someone gave me their special discount link for Listability. I reached out to them, and asked for information on how they work and pricing.
They provide you with an excel list, but no email or phone numbers.
I asked for the price, which they gave, and told me that because this specific person RT, referred me, I was getting a discounted price.
But I was curious to find out how much discount it was, so I asked what the regular price is vs the discounted price.
They kept circling around, and never gave me a straight answer.
Last email I got from them today, was saying:" I think you would be better off finding another List Company". which tells me that they are not sincere about their "discounted" price. Because if John refers Mary to me and tells her that because he refers her, she will get a special discount, then I shouldn't have a problem telling Mary the regular price and the discounted price with John, since he refers so many people to us.
To me this is a red flag!!
The person who referred me is a well known name in the industry, and it is strange to me that I am told I am getting a discount because of her and they make such a big deal from it.....
I responded back, and curious to see if they will still respond or not. I will check out other companies too.
@Nakia Jay It can certainly be easier to work in your backyard. Think about working with a list broker who can work with you on finding a list that isn't getting hit by every other investor in your market. LA is both competitive and expensive.
As Sean mentioned, if you are going with Absentee Owners, you want more motivating factors than just hoping they are tired of having the property. Out-of-area owners can tend to have more motivation than the ones next door.
That said, Absentee Owners, no matter how motivated, are getting a lot of offers in their mail box. In fact I heard of one response where the owner was having a special open house for just the investors who were sending her mail!
You might consider working with a mailing list broker instead of going to an on-line system. They can help tweak lists for your market. There are some owner-occupied segments with people who share motivating factors for selling their home.
Seniors with Long-time Ownership: often ready to downsize or transition to assistance.
Homeowners with Low Financial Stability Scores (FSS): Struggling financially and likely ready to cash in on their asset.
Both these categories have additional advantages in that they probably don’t haven’t been updated and may have deferred maintenance. They won’t be expecting the same money as their neighbors with the shiny new kitchen and fresh paint.
Both lists can be mixed with Absentee Owners if you don't want to put all your faith in owner occupied - and can be customized with property type and home value along with other limiting factors.
Good luck!
We have been using listability for couple of years and it still is the most reliable list on the market