A long long time ago when I was a rookie Realtor® I attended an event hosted by a training legend, Roger Butcher. He gave us a “free business builder” for attending his seminar. That free business builder was a letter he used to capture more listings using something called “absentee owners”. I LOVED IT!
An Absentee Owner is simply a person who does not live full-time in the house she owns.
The way Butcher explained it was pretty simple. Take his letter and send it out to a list of absentee owners every 3 months until they called you and asked you to list their house for them. It was a super simple niche style farm (“Click here” to learn more about farming) and I jumped right on board.
Of course, over the years, I changed to my own version of the letter and fine tuned my strategy and turned it into a sweet little money maker that you can use as well, so let’s look at what I built.
Absentee Owner Strategy
Create Your List of Absentee Owners
Before you can create your list, you need to determine the area (or areas) you want to target. It’s best to find an area that has many rental or seasonal homes, such as around a college or maybe a mountain resort. These areas will give you a higher amount of absentee owners to choose from. Open Google maps and zoom in. Write down the names of all the roads you want to focus on. (You may be able to do all of this right from your MLS, so you should check on that first).
Once you know your streets there are several ways to create your list of Absentee Owners. I am still partial to the original method, which is heading down to city hall (or wherever the tax records are kept in your area) and going to the assessors’ office with a list of streets you’re interested in. Go to the tax cards and search by street. Look at each address and then look at where the tax bill is sent. If the bill is sent to a different address you have hit on an absentee owner! Write down both addresses and the owners’ names and move on.
The second method would be to use your MLS to access the tax information. The process will be the same. You will search the streets and look for owners whose billing address is different from the property address.
The third method would be to use a mailing list service. This is the fastest and easiest way to do it but it will cost you. In order to use one of these websites, you just need to know what area you are interested in targeting and finding it on a map and asking for a list of absentee owners, and then tell the site how many addresses and names you want to buy and you’re good to go!
Create Your Letter
You may think you’re going to need to create a new letter every 3 months, because you will be reaching out to each list you create once every three month. The good news is that you don’t need to keep creating new letters. You can use the same letter over and over again. The only items you will need to change are the date on the top of the letter and page 2, which is going to include the sales data from the area you targeted.
Your letter should introduce you and exactly why you are sending the letter. Let them know you are a real estate expert in the area they own a secondary property and you want to keep them informed of what’s going on in the area. Also let them know if they have any questions about the area or need a referral for services to let you know. Also let them know you will be staying in touch every few months with a market snapshot of what sold in their area. You should include a call to action always, so why not make an offer to have them send you their email address so you can add them to your special list of people who are informed when a home in their area sells… In other words, just add them to the saved search we’re going to discuss in the next step. (This is important as it will help you create a list of people who are starting to think about selling)
Your letter can be original or you can use this letter.
Create a Saved Search in MLS
Use your MLS skills to create a “map search” of the sold houses in the area. You will copy this into page 2 of your letter before you mail merge and send it out to your absentee owners.
Begin Your Mail Merge & Mail Your First Set of Letters
Mail merging seems old school, but if you’re going to deal with niche farms such as this, you’re going to need to dust this old skill off and get back at it. I will hopefully find the time to create a tutorial video on this soon. Until then, you can find instructions all over the internet so don’t worry, it’s kind of easy. You will, however, need something like Microsoft Office or a good CRM.
Create a .csv file of all of your Absentee Owner lists and merge them into the document containing your letter and the saved search results page.
While you’re at it, you can create your mailing labels in bulk so you don’t need to do it every month. Print 4 sets of each since you will be mailing to your Absentee Owner lists 4 times a year.
Add “Hits” to your CRM and MLS Saved Search
After you send your letters (probably not the first time) you will start to receive calls or emails from Absentee Owners who will take you up on your offer to be added to your list of owners who want to be notified of sales in their area. Create a custom-sold search for them in MLS and then add them to your CRM and treat them like your would treat someone in your Sphere of Influence.
Also… congratulate yourself because you just captured a listing lead!
Consider something like Homebot® to Boost Your Results
First, let me say that I have no affiliation with Homebot® and haven’t used the product in a while. I always did like it though and products like Homebot are a great “call to action” to replace and automate the “email me when a home sells in my area” call to action we discussed above.
Products like Homebot allow you to offer homeowners to sign up for free (you will pay though… .It was $25/mo when I last looked) and they can get market snapshots of the area they live in as well as an awesome tool that allows them to build wealth using their most important asset(s), their home! I am not going to get into a whole discussion on what Homebot is, but it is something you may want to look into. Here’s a link – Once again, I have no association with Homebot and haven’t used it in a while, so proceed with caution, as this is not an endorsement of the product.
Repeat Every 3 Months
Once you’re done, just repeat the process to the list every 3 months. You can send the exact same letter, just change the market snapshot you’re using. In other words, run a new list of sold properties in the area and keep page 2 up to date. If you’d like, you can create 3 different lists so that you can send out a few to each list every 3 months.
Be Patient!
Remember, this is a form of marketing (“Click here” to see more on Marketing) so you need to be patient and make sure you have a budget to do this consistently because you will not see results right away. “Consistency and Patience” are the keys to successful marketing in real estate!
Do Your Follow-Up
All of the “hits” you receive are listing leads! That’s a great thing to get since we all know that listings are AWESOME… but like any lead, you need to follow up for as long as it takes and get yourself a “yes” or a “no” before you give up on it. This type of lead will commonly take anywhere from 6 to 18 months to convert, so don’t give up… Giving up makes all the work you’ve done worthless. Remember, patience and consistency! (“Click here” for more information on how to convert a lead)
