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Business Marketing

Here’s A Dirty Little Trick For Direct Mail

My trick isn't dirty, it's just drawn that wayDirect Mailing expired listings because every person in the universe is on the do not call list?

Ya me too.

And does your MLS only give you an address and expiration date? So that you’re addressing everything to…

Owner, Some Street, Anytown, Zip?

And half of the mail comes back to you because the house is vacant and the Post Office doesn’t know who fluffy bunnies “Owner” is to forward the mail?

Try… https://www.whitepages.com/reverse_address

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It’s a little tedious to look up every address I know, but it works as long as they don’t have an unlisted number. Mailing to an actual name and address makes delivery and actual reading by the addresse a much higher percentage chance. Plus you’d be surprised how often the listing agent has the street address of their listings wrong.

LostSeriously, maybe half the reason the house failed to sell is because no one could find 135 Winter Street when the actual address was 135 Winer Road.

Zip Code 06010 is Bristol, CT. Zip code 06001 is Avon, CT three towns over. If we can’t find it, we can’t buy it.

Anyway, I digress…

Just reverse address look up for direct mail for names. Tedious, but it works. 

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8 Comments

8 Comments

  1. Benn Rosales

    November 13, 2007 at 3:00 am

    lol man get out of my head, I was just cursing the wind over the same thing! addresses! even google can’t get them right!

  2. Carson Coots

    November 13, 2007 at 9:33 pm

    Bite your tongue… google and apple always do right. Even when they do wrong.

  3. Mariana

    November 13, 2007 at 11:31 pm

    Try RedX (https://www.theredx.com/) if you want to scrub expired listings against current MLS listings and tax records … and actually get correct addresses and names. Not sure if that would help in this situation (or in your area), but it IS a cool product.

    Our MLS is so tight, we are not even allowed to input our own addresses. We have to pick street names from a pick list and then the system matches it up with assessors record data. If it does not match, you cannot input the listing.

  4. Athol Kay

    November 14, 2007 at 12:16 am

    Mariana that’s now twice in 24 hours someone has recommended that to me. I’m looking into it.

  5. Mariana

    November 14, 2007 at 12:37 am

    Let us know what you think? We LOVE it.

  6. Patrick Hake

    November 15, 2007 at 1:30 am

    The MLS in my area provides a link to the county tax records, which has the mailing address for the current owner of a property.

    This is especially useful, because I find that absantee owners are more receptive to direct mail, especially if it provides useful information about the local market.

  7. Jay Zenner

    February 4, 2008 at 10:44 am

    County tax records are online in most of the counties I operate in. It’s one of my most used “favorite” links. When the tax billing address is different than the property address it is a good clue that the owner has already moved or the property was a rental.

  8. Kevin Scott

    April 23, 2010 at 12:29 pm

    For expireds, I’ll also reccommend the redx AND for expired scripts, get free ones (I think they’re free) at mikeferry.com. I’ve been to the bank using both. Good luck.

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