Should I mail absentee owners over 65?
By Josh MillerUpdated 3 min readUsually not as a seller list: in 343 of 384 counties measured, owners 65 and older who live somewhere else sold off-market less often over 12 months than a random house in the same county. Check your own county before you drop it, because in a few, like Nassau County, NY, the list did better.
On paper this list looks like a sure thing. An older owner, a house they don't live in, maybe a rental they're tired of managing from across the city. It gets taught as the tired landlord list, and plenty of investors mail it every month.
The deeds tell a different story in most counties.
What the deeds show
We lined up every off-market sale in each county against the owners on this list. In 343 of the 384 counties where we could measure it, owners 65 and older who live somewhere else sold off-market less often than a random house in the same county over 12 months.
| County | Owners 65+, living elsewhere | Any house, at random | Owners on the list |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harris County, TX (Houston) | 0.5 | 1.4 | 28,333 |
| Los Angeles County, CA | 0.2 | 0.4 | 62,119 |
| Duval County, FL (Jacksonville) | 0.7 | 1.7 | 9,595 |
| Maricopa County, AZ (Phoenix) | 1.3 | 1.4 | 54,387 |
| Cook County, IL (Chicago) | 1.1 | 1.1 | 8,536 |
| Where the list did better | |||
| Nassau County, NY (Long Island) | 4.0 | 0.9 | 1,872 |
In Harris County, TX, fewer than 1 of every 100 of these owners sold off-market within 12 months, against about 1.4 of every 100 houses picked at random over the same 12 months. That's 28,333 owners and only 146 off-market sales.
Duval County, FL looks the same, about 0.7 of every 100 on the list against about 1.7 of every 100 random houses within 12 months. In Los Angeles County, CA, both numbers are small, and the list still came in under.
Maricopa County, AZ was close, just under the random house. Cook County, IL came out level: about 1 of every 100 either way over 12 months. Level is still a poor trade, because you're paying to mail owners who sell no more often than anyone else on the street.
The counties where it worked
The other 41 of the 384 counties matched or beat the random house. Nassau County, NY is the clearest: about 4 of every 100 owners 65 and older living elsewhere sold off-market within 12 months, against about 1 of every 100 houses picked at random over the same 12 months.
So the honest answer is to check your county. If you're mailing this list on Long Island, keep going. If you're mailing it in Houston, the postage has better places to go.
The records show which way it went. They can't show why. One plausible reason it lags in most places: an owner who has held a paid-off rental for years has steady income and no clock running.
What to mail instead
Start with lists where something just happened to the owner. Owners whose listing expired or was cancelled sold off-market more often within 12 months than a random house in all 492 counties we could measure; are expired listings worth mailing has the county numbers.
Among the lists that sit there, vacant houses held up best. They sold off-market less often than a random house in only 5 of 281 counties measured. Owners two to four years behind on their taxes fell below it in only 10 of 275; tax delinquent leads covers which tax years sell in which counties.
High equity, the other filter people reach for, is mixed: owners with high equity living elsewhere fell below the random house in 197 of 543 counties, about a third. Equity tells you what a deal is worth. It says little about who is selling.
If you stack lists, some overlaps help and some hurt; list stacking covers which. And for the whole scoreboard in two named counties, see which motivated seller lists actually sell.
For clients, we rank owners against what actually sold off-market in their own county. If older absentee owners lagged there, they get fewer stamps. If they sold, as they did in Nassau, they get mailed. How it works shows the weekly build.
How we counted
We counted every off-market, arm's-length sale recorded in each county over 12 months and checked which list each house was on before it sold. A house picked at random is every single-family house in the county, over the same 12 months.
Every number here is counted from the county's own records. The numbers were counted by FirstPulse, the data engine GoForClose runs on.
Questions investors ask
Do absentee owners over 65 sell less than other houses?
In most counties measured, yes. In 343 of 384 counties, owners 65 and older who live somewhere else sold off-market less often than a random house in the same county over 12 months. In Harris County, TX, fewer than 1 of every 100 sold off-market within 12 months, against about 1.4 of every 100 houses picked at random.
Is there any county where the list works?
Yes. In 41 of the 384 counties, the list matched or beat a random house. In Nassau County, NY, about 4 of every 100 owners 65 and older living elsewhere sold off-market within 12 months, against about 1 of every 100 houses picked at random. Check yours before you drop it.
What should I mail instead?
Lists where something just happened to the owner, like expired and cancelled listings, which beat a random house within 12 months in all 492 counties measured. Among standing lists, vacant houses fell below a random house in only 5 of 281 counties.
Is high equity a better filter?
Not for finding sellers. Owners with high equity living elsewhere sold off-market less often than a random house in 197 of 543 counties measured, over 12 months. Equity tells you what a deal is worth. It says little about who is selling.
How do I check this list in my county?
Run the free county read. It counts which lists in your county sold off-market last year, from the county's own records.