Lead lists guide

Real estate lead lists: exactly what to pull.

The best motivated-seller lists start with the right base filters, single family, off-market, 30 percent or more equity, and 15-plus years of ownership, then stack distress lead types on top: pre-foreclosure, notice of default and sale, liens, tax delinquent, probate, vacant, and absentee. Build to about 15,000 records for your market, skip-trace them, and dial. Or bring it to us and we pull and call it for you.

Book my free strategy call Get the leads done for you

Which lists actually convert

Every list type that produces deals ties to a real reason an owner might sell. These are the signals worth stacking.

Lead type	The motivation signal
Pre-foreclosure	The owner is behind and under time pressure to sell.
Notice of default / notice of sale	Foreclosure has formally started, the clock is running.
Involuntary liens	A debt is attached to the property, a reason to resolve it fast.
Tax delinquent	Unpaid property taxes, a clear sign of financial strain.
Probate / inherited	Heirs who often want a quick, simple, as-is sale.
Vacant	A holding cost with nobody in it, easy to let go.
Absentee owner	Does not live there, often tired of managing it.
High equity (base filter)	Room to sell at a discount and still walk away happy.

Stacking two or three of these on a high-equity base is what concentrates motivation.

How to pull your list, step by step

This is the exact process we teach clients. Follow it yourself, or skip to the end and we will pull it for you.

Add your ZIP codes

Pick your target market. Targeting several cities or counties? Ask an AI to list every ZIP code separated by commas, then paste them into your list provider.

Apply the base filters

Set them once and keep them on the whole time: single family, residential, off-market, 30 percent or more equity, 15-plus years owned.

Stack the lead types

With the base filters kept on, add each distress lead type one at a time and save each to the same list, then uncheck it and move to the next.

Skip-trace and dial

Build toward about 15,000 records, skip-trace for current numbers, scrub against the Do Not Call Registry, and dial daily.

The base filters to keep on

These stay applied through every step. They are what make the list owners who actually have a reason and the equity to sell.

Filter	Set it to
Property type	Single family (or your target property type)
Status	Residential and off-market only
Estimated equity	30 percent or more
Years of ownership	15 or more (lower to 10 or more if the list is too small)

The lead types to stack

Apply each one individually with the base filters kept on, and save every result to the same list. The overlap is where the motivation concentrates.

Pre-foreclosureNotice of saleNotice of defaultInvoluntary liensTax delinquentProbateVacantAbsentee owners

Target around 15,000 records for a market. That keeps a caller dialing for weeks without the list running dry.

Then skip-trace, scrub, and call

A list of addresses is not callable until you have phone numbers and clearance. This is the step most people get wrong.

Skip-trace for numbers

Match every owner to current phone numbers so callers reach real, reachable people, not dead lines. See skip tracing.

Scrub for compliance

Scrub against the National Do Not Call Registry and applicable state lists, and dial only in legal local-time windows.

Dial it daily

A trained caller works the list every business day. Volume plus a stacked, clean list is what surfaces motivated sellers.

Or skip all of this, we build it for you

You can follow every step above, or hand it off. We pull and skip-trace the highest-converting lists for your market at $0.03 per record, scrub them for compliance, and put a dedicated, real-estate-trained caller on them, with a written guarantee of 20 to 40 qualified seller leads per caller per month. Bring your own list and we will call that instead. See motivated seller leads and skip tracing, or the lists that convert.

Book my free strategy call See pricing

Lead list questions

The ones operators ask before they pull a list.

Single-family (or your target property type), residential, off-market only, estimated equity of 30 percent or more, and 15 or more years of ownership. Keep these applied the whole time. If the list comes back too small, lower years of ownership to 10 or more before you loosen anything else.

The distress lead types that signal a real reason to sell: pre-foreclosure, notice of default, notice of sale, involuntary liens, tax delinquent, probate, vacant, and absentee owners. Stack them onto the same base-filtered list one at a time, so every record carries equity plus a distress trigger.

Aim for about 15,000 records for a market. That is enough to keep a dedicated caller dialing for weeks without running dry, while staying tight enough that every record matches your equity and distress criteria. Quality beats quantity: a clean, stacked, skip-traced list out-produces a huge stale one.

Either works if the data is fresh and exclusive. A bought, shared, aged list is the weakest option. Pulling your own with the filters here, or having us pull and skip-trace it, gives you exclusive, reachable owners with a real reason to sell.

Yes. Bring your own list, or we pull and skip-trace the highest-converting lists for your market at $0.03 per record, scrubbed against the Do Not Call Registry, then a dedicated caller dials it daily. You can follow the steps below yourself, or hand it to us and we take it from there.

Want the list pulled, skip-traced, and called for you?

Book your free strategy call and we will map the exact lists for your market, then dial them with a written lead guarantee.

Book my free strategy call