Speed to Lead Ledger

I ran acquisitions for a small wholesaling team in Sacramento for six years. We tracked everything: how fast we called, how many times, what each lead cost and which ones turned into contracts. Most of what we learned fits on a page, and this site is that page, stretched out a little.

What's in the ledger

The first entry is about the first hour after a lead comes in, and why it matters more than anything else you control. The second does the math on shared versus exclusive leads, because the cheaper lead isn't always the cheaper deal. The third is about tired landlords, the seller type that rewards patient follow-up more than any other.

A few numbers to keep in your head

A widely cited study in the Harvard Business Review looked at how quickly companies respond to online inquiries and found most of them were far too slow. Firms that responded within an hour were dramatically more likely to qualify the lead than those that waited longer. That study wasn't about real estate, but every acquisitions manager I know has seen the same curve in their own numbers.

For broader context on who's buying and selling homes, the National Association of Realtors research page publishes regular data on sellers, buyers and how they find each other.

If you want to test response time yourself, you need leads that arrive while the seller is still thinking about it. That's the point of a real-time seller lead feed: the clock starts when the seller hits submit, not when a list vendor gets around to exporting it.

Everything here is from my experience and the sources linked. Your market and your team will produce different numbers, so track your own.

Dana Whitfield ran acquisitions for a Sacramento wholesaling team for six years and kept a spreadsheet on every lead. These notes come from that spreadsheet.