Knowing how to prospect properties efficiently makes it much easier for real estate brokers and investors to identify opportunities to generate revenue. Luckily, you don’t have to follow a specific approach to prospecting. Many real estate professionals find that they get the best results by using a combination of options.
No matter which option you choose, you will need accurate information that lets you contact property owners authorized to make deals.
Email Property Owners to Start Conversations
Email is a terrific way to prospect properties. It doesn’t cost very much money to send emails and manage email marketing campaigns, so there is very low risk to this option. Additionally, you can collect a lot of data from your campaigns. Unlike with physical letters, which you’ll learn about next, you’ll know how many people open your emails and click on the links. With the right marketing software, you can even track what recipients do after they click your links.
Email works well because you can send messages to thousands of leads. It’s an extremely fast, data-driven, low-cost way to prospect properties.
Send Letters to Property Owners
It’s true that email offers an inexpensive way for you to start conversations with property owners. Unfortunately, though, the real estate industry as a whole doesn’t have a lot of success with emails. On average, you can expect about 19% of people to open your emails and fewer than than 2% to click through to visit your website and learn more about the opportunities you offer, according to Mailchimp.
You should also consider how the average person reacts when they receive unsolicited emails. How many times have you personally sent messages straight to the trash or spam folder because you don’t recognize the sender’s email address?
Additionally, spam filters do their best to protect users from unwanted messages. Recipients might not even have the chance to see your email.
Physical letters help you avoid these challenges while you prospect properties. Sure, some people will put your physical letters in their recycling bins without a second thought. Plenty of others, however, will take a few moments to look at what you send them.
Letters, greeting cards, and other mailers tend to work best when you already have a relationship with the recipient. For example, a holiday card can remind a property owner that they once relied on you to finalize a deal. If they’re thinking about buying or selling other pieces of real estate, a simple card makes it more likely that they will contact you instead of another real estate professional.
Cold Calling Isn’t Dead
Cold calling is a fairly labor intensive and time-consuming way to prospect properties. If enough people report you, third-party call-blocking apps will flag your number. Once that happens, very few people will answer your calls.
People are very serious about stopping unwanted calls. Statista reports that as recently as 2019, the average American received 31.7 spam calls per month. They’re sick of it, and the FCC has implemented technology to crack down on companies that abuse cold calling.
But that doesn’t make cold calling completely ineffective. You do, however, want to limit your time to valuable leads. Don’t waste time and energy calling every property owner in your region. You’ll get the best results from targeting people likely to sell their real estate within the next year or so.
Use Accurate Contact Information to Improve Your ROI
Inaccurate or outdated contact information makes it very difficult for real estate brokers and investors to reach their intended leads. Property records maintained by government agencies don’t always keep up with the most recent changes in ownership.
The situation can become even more complicated when a company owns the property. The contact information for a business doesn’t always list the address, phone number, or email address of someone who can make important decisions.
ProspectNow helps you avoid unnecessary work by giving you access to millions of listings with accurate contact information. The database lists 100 million residential and 42 million commercial properties. All of them have recent contact info to help you reach and convert leads.
The database will also generate lead lists that make it even easier for you to prospect properties. You can generate lists based on property features, zoning, values, and other factors. The more specific you get, the less time you spend sifting through properties that do not fit into your portfolio.
Predictive Analytics Saves Time and Effort While Prospecting Properties
Having accurate contact information helps a lot when you need to prospect properties. ProspectNow takes things a step further by helping you focus on off-market real estate that will likely be listed within the next 12 months.
The platform uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to identify properties that will probably go on the market. The algorithm looks at factors like whether an owner has kept up with mortgage payments and if commercial properties have filled all of their available spaces.
If a property looks like it might be in distress, the algorithm flags it as a strong lead. Concentrating on these leads has helped many real estate professionals increase their ROIs by working smarter instead of harder.
Start Prospecting Properties With Help From ProspectNow!
ProspectNow has been around for more than a decade — since 2008 to be exact. It allows users to access information that competing platforms sell at much higher prices. By using ProspectNow, you have the opportunity to close more deals, which means you can make more money!
Trustworthy and easy to do business with, ProspectNow is a provider of reliable data. It is a vital tool to business success in real estate and real estate marketing.
Want to see how ProspectNow can make it easier for you to prospect properties and increase your ROI? Take advantage of the free trial to experience a comprehensive database with accurate contact information and predictive analytics.
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