How One Neighborhood Search Led to Two Seller Conversations

Most agents think they need hundreds of leads.........I don't.

I'd rather have a small list of the right property owners than a massive list of people who have no interest in selling.

A few days ago, one of our agents at Williams-Claytor Realty accepted a contract on a home in Bellefontaine Neighbors.

Instead of moving on to the next task, I asked myself a simple question.

Who else in this neighborhood might be thinking about selling?

Start with a neighborhood, not a ZIP code

One mistake I see agents make is searching an entire ZIP code.....That's too broad.

I opened PropWire and drew a custom boundary around the neighborhood surrounding our listing.

From there, I filtered for absentee owners who had owned their properties for several years.

Those owners already had something in common.

They owned investment property in a neighborhood where we had just demonstrated we could successfully market and sell a home.

That made the conversation much more relevant.

Data only works if you use it

After building the list, I used PropWire's skip tracing feature to find contact information.

Next, I imported the list into BatchDialer.

Every morning, I block time for outbound prospecting before I do anything else.

That's where the real work happens.

The goal wasn't to pressure anyone into selling.

The goal was simply to start conversations.

Some owners told me they weren't interested.

Others were curious about what their properties might be worth.

That's a win.

Give people something valuable

Two owners asked about the value of their properties.

Instead of emailing a CMA and hoping for the best, I wanted to make the experience more personal.

I recorded a Loom video for each homeowner.

Inside the video, I walked through:

• Active listings

• Pending sales

• Recently sold homes

• How each one affected the value of their property

Anyone can email a CMA.

Very few agents take five extra minutes to explain what the numbers actually mean.

That simple step helped establish trust.

It also gave the homeowners a chance to see who I was.

With so many spam calls and scams today, putting a face to the name matters.

Relationships usually take more than one phone call

One owner was willing to talk during our first conversation.

The other wasn't.

He was cautious.

Honestly, I expected that.

Absentee owners receive plenty of calls from investors, wholesalers, and agents.

Instead of trying to force the conversation, I stayed consistent.

I followed up.

Answered questions.

Provided value.

Eventually, he agreed to meet in person.

The other owner even asked me to prepare another market analysis on a different property.

That's another opportunity that started with one phone call.

The lesson

People often ask me where I find seller leads.

The answer isn't complicated.

Start with good data.

Call consistently.

Provide value before asking for business.

Follow up.

That's exactly what happened here.

Nothing is guaranteed yet.

Neither property is listed.

But the conversations are happening because the work happened first.

That's how listing businesses are built.

One neighborhood.

One phone call.

One relationship at a time.

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