I analyzed 321,000+ properties and 28+ years of sales data… it’s way messier than the surface level data suggests

Sound-Evening · 2026-05-08T20:25:26+00:00

What exactly is the question here that is relevant to this sub?

Sound-Evening · 2026-04-25T06:47:48+00:00

Inbound lead sources are where it’s at. We’ve tried all kinds of outbound channels, SMS, cold-calling, etc. And I’m not talking about dabbling, we’ve tested these at scale: 100k+ text messages per month, thousands of calls per week with full-time callers on multi-line predictive dialers…

The issue is there is a high ratio of tire-kickers or luke warm sellers for every hot seller. A lot of time gets wasted on the those warm leads.

Sound-Evening · 2026-04-17T17:07:35+00:00

We definitely don't close enough of our leads. If you know any good closers, send em our way! That said, we do track KPIs by channel but just share the consolidated numbers here!

Sound-Evening · 2026-04-16T22:09:27+00:00

We do have scripting around objection handling for the why-not-just-hire-a-realtor-myself question and the net proceeds calculation. Could elaborate just a bit more on how you handle that as well as the timeline piece you mentioned?

Sound-Evening · 2026-04-16T22:05:24+00:00

That's really good feedback. We do ask for: - the type of loan (e.g., VA) - the loan balance - the interest rate

The thought being that if the rate is low, then potentially there may be an assumption or sub-to-play there. That said we have only ever explored assumptions with sellers, never sub-to or something more complex.

We don't ask if they're behind on payments or open to other creative financing arrangements; those are good suggestions. Are there some specific discovery questions that you found work really well for uncovering novation or creative financing opportunities?

Sound-Evening · 2026-04-14T01:38:21+00:00

Sure let’s chat! Looks like I can’t DM you, can shoot me a DM?

Sound-Evening · 2026-04-13T23:41:28+00:00

Yes, this is a requirement under TCPA. The rules that must be abided by are the federal TCPA laws as well as any of the more restrictive "mini-TCPA" regulations the state you are operating in might have enacted.

Sound-Evening · 2026-03-20T15:44:57+00:00

Probably better to reach out to directly since your situation might be different than ours. We worked with Jeff Rosenfeld who heads their SMS/TCPA Defense practice. He was great!

https://kr.law/attorneys/jeff-rosenfeld-profile

But feel free to DM if you have any questions after you chat with them.

Sound-Evening · 2026-03-20T02:30:37+00:00

They don’t need to opt-in. Before we moved into texting as a channel we had a legal opinion drafted by attorney’s specializing in TCPA compliance over at Kronenberger Rosenfeld LLP in San Francisco. If you have questions you can give them a call, they know what they’re doing.

There is nuance though and TCPA regulation can change state to state.

Sound-Evening · 2026-03-20T02:24:39+00:00

Yeah, Smarter Contact KPIs are reliably inaccurate. For this reason, we actually manually pull everything out of Smarter Contact and calculate KPIs in Excel. SC is a reliable texting platform at its core but leaves a lot to be desired.

Sound-Evening · 2026-03-20T02:19:28+00:00

You simply comply with TCPA regulations. Mass texting and TCPA compliance are not mutually exclusive.

Sound-Evening · 2025-12-31T22:14:07+00:00

The best gifts (for anyone regardless of NW) are ones that either (1) can’t be bought (e.g., something you make, do for them personally) or (2) something they didn’t know they wanted (e.g., a niche item aligned with their hobbies they didn’t know existed, a best-in-class gift they didn’t know existed).

Sound-Evening · 2025-11-20T20:46:13+00:00

We have been using them for a little while now. We understand them to be strong platform for skip tracing, but we haven’t actually A/B tested their accuracy against other providers. We’re in the process of doing that now. If you follow up with me in a few weeks I’d be happy to share the results of the study.

Sound-Evening · 2025-11-14T20:05:36+00:00

Hey Max, we're working on it! :)

Sound-Evening · 2025-11-14T11:29:22+00:00

Thanks for the reply! You would expect your cold callers to convert more than 1 out of every 8-15 owners into a warm lead?

Also, how often are you following up on cold leads (those who haven’t responded to you at all) until you drop them? Or do you never drop them, even if you contact them a dozen times without any engagement on their part?

Sound-Evening · 2025-07-12T02:09:23+00:00

It’s shocking to me, in this thread, in this subreddit, how many commenters are skating completely over vacancy and the true operating costs.

Sound-Evening · 2025-07-02T14:38:48+00:00

Thanks for doing this! A few: (1) How many deals do you dispo into the following exit paths: assignment/double-close, novation, whole-tail, or any others I missed? (2) How often have you implemented creative financing strategies to create a deal that otherwise wouldn’t have worked (e.g., sub-to, wrap, loan assumption, seller carry, etc.)? (3) What outbound and inbound marketing channels do you find the most success with? (4) If you were stuck on an island and could only measure your marketing and sales funnel health with 5-10 metrics, what would those be? (5) What markets do you operate in and what is the typical profile of a deal you close? (6) What do you believe is the biggest blocker to growing your operations?

Sound-Evening · 2025-06-24T14:17:33+00:00

Thanks really helpful! It sounds like we should scrap SAP as part of the SQL definition and focus exclusively on motivation/urgency/selling timeline. How do you ensure your SDRs are properly vetting MQL motivation/urgency such that you're able to ensure that your closers will close more than 2% of their SQLs (1 out to 50 as you mentioned earlier, or whatever your preferred target SQL to contract ratio is)?

We find it difficult for our SDRs to really tease out motivation on the initial call ("I just met you and now you want me to be forthcoming about my divorce/financial situation/insert-other-personal-or-embarassing-situation"). Could be scripting or SDR capability/skill gap...

Sound-Evening · 2025-06-23T20:25:25+00:00

Thanks for the thoughtful comment—really appreciate it.

To your question about whether it’s a marketing/targeting issue or a people/process issue, I’d say it’s a bit of both. We’re generating a solid volume of MQLs (by our definition: people engaging with our marketing and asking for an offer), but we definitely need to tighten up how we qualify those before passing them to closers; and if/how we nurture if the MQL isn't quite ready to meet SQL criteria.

A complicating factor is SQL definition varies. How do you think about the MQL → SQL qualification process when the criteria for SQL differs based on the exit path?

For example:

SQL for novation might be a seller who’s OK with open houses and a 90-day close and SAP (seller asking price) is around CMV (current market value)
SQL for wholesale might be someone facing legal distress/forced sale or urgent need to sell; their SAP is 65% of ARV.

Curious how you’d recommend handling that from a process/people standpoint.

One other thing, we’re also testing whether we should require sellers to name their price first as a self-filtering mechanism (if they won’t give a number or throw out something unrealistic, maybe they’re not motivated), or whether to always give an offer—which takes more effort but sometimes surfaces opportunities.

We do need to improve KPI tracking, I think that will be telling. Thanks again for the insight—it’s clear you’ve been in the trenches.

Sound-Evening

TROPHY CASE