mailing list help (absentee vs owner-occupied)

[boywithk9]

I work in a market that's a combination of second homes and primary residences. My niche is beach homes, which is heavier in the second home category. I have a database of 18,000 properties that I'm cutting down to about 1,000 by filtering on property type (SFR only), purchase date (pre-2003), and other criteria.

One of the criteria I'm using is absentee-owners, but I'm wondering if any of you have thoughts on mailing to absentee-owned vs owner-occupied. I don't want to spend the money on mailing to more than 1,000 people, since I'll be doing it monthly. So I feel like I should pick one and target them more directly in the mailing.

Has anyone had more success with one versus the other?

[JimOlenbush]

I have had some success targeting out-of-state owners for listings. Most other agents do not mail to them. A lot of agents are using door hangers because of the rising cost of postage. The absentee owners never see the door hangers and local advertising. It makes sense to me.

[boywithk9]

Thanks, Jim. What kind of mailings do you do?

[Joelrunner]

Random thought:

What about mailing 2000 absentee owners and get a property manager (who doesn't sell homes) to go halvsies with you?

[boywithk9]

Thanks for the thought.