
Top 10 Steps to Create a Real Estate Mailing List for Direct Mail
Did you know the global market value of the direct mail industry is nearly $42,799 million?
It seems unbelievable in today’s digital age, right? Your agency can derive many benefits from direct mail, from getting business to strengthening client relationships. And all you need is an effective real estate mailing list to ensure your campaign is successful!
Compiling a high-quality list can be complicated and time-consuming. But it ensures your direct mailers reach relevant audiences and helps you get the desired results.
You may come across many real estate mailing lists that are expensive or inaccurate, wasting money and time.
This blog discusses the types of mailing lists you can use and how to build them.
Let us begin!
What Is a Real Estate Mailing List?
A realtor mailing list consists of the physical delivery addresses of a business’s prospects and customers. It helps accomplish marketing and sales goals by enabling companies to contact their intended audiences and communicate their offer!
Mailing lists should be error-free, valid, and deliverable to keep mail returns in check. Otherwise, they can lead to losses and negatively impact your marketing campaigns.
Most agencies buy or rent their real estate mailing lists—restricting their capabilities to connect with their prospects. They might be available for one-time use, limiting you from getting the most out of your campaigns.
Compiling lists is hectic, but it is worth the effort! These real estate marketing tools lists are more accurate, reliable, and profitable than the rented ones because your in-house team works on them. You can add notes according to your prospect conversations and customize your campaigns.
A mailing list can cost between $0.10 to $0.60 per record. It varies according to the quality, specialty, and updates. You may pay extra to buy or rent a cleansed real estate mailing list because they guarantee better deliverability rates and higher responses.
Also Read: Real Estate Direct Mail Marketing
Why use real estate mailing lists?
Real estate lists for direct mail marketing have multiple uses and benefits. They assist agencies in planning their strategies and accomplishing them effortlessly. Using customized commercial real estate mailing lists to send snail mail items allows them to improve brand visibility and develop a strong image.
- Client acquisition: You may employ a specialty realtor mailing list to generate more leads and convert them into loyal clients. The mail marketing campaign can help you laser-focus on your prospects and meet their expectations. It also lets you highlight your services as stellar, diverting your audience’s attention from your competitors to your agency.
- Client retention: A cleansed real estate mailing list with addresses of your already engaged clients can facilitate your retention efforts. You can re-sell your services to them by constantly staying in touch and discussing your offers. Try sending them personalized direct mailers using the list to stay at the top of their minds.
- Brand advocates: Your agency can utilize real estate mailing lists and direct marketing to create brand ambassadors that promote your services. When you send well-curated direct mail items to relevant prospects or clients, they tend to share details about your company with their family and friends. This practice helps you improve brand awareness and reputation!
- Advertise your listings: Sending direct mail is an excellent way of promoting your client’s property listings. You can compile a specialty real estate mailing list to reach out to people who could be interested without wasting time on generic advertising. To make your listing advertising even more effective, you can combine off-line with on-line marketing channels by sending direct mail to your prospects' physical addresses through services like PostGrid along with a digital listing version sent via any real estate email marketing software tools available on the market today.
Types of Real Estate Mailing Lists to Use
The mailing list you select can make or break your campaigns. Try using some commonly-used types that can be advantageous for your marketing activities.
Pre-Foreclosure Lists
A pre-foreclosure real estate mailing list helps you get the details of all the homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgage payments. You can use this information to contact them to persuade them to sell the house before losing it to foreclosure.
Pre-foreclosure realtor mailing lists help agencies find clients having more chances of getting quick buyers. The property rates are usually lower, making it easier to sell the house fast and receive a hefty commission.
Out-of-State Landlords
Getting your hands on a real estate mailing list with the names and addresses of out-of-state landlords is similar to opening a treasure chest. People living far away from their properties may not want to worry about managing them.
You can send a direct mail item to persuade them to sell the property. Try earning their trust and assuring them that you can help!
Expired Listings
Always have an eye on expired listings on websites like realtor.com. It helps you compile a real estate mailing list of people who failed to sell a property for various reasons. You can connect with them via direct mail and discuss how you can take over from here and sell the property quickly.
Some of these properties have significant flaws, for example—the location is hard to reach, weather conditions, high renovation costs, etc. So, work with these realtor mailing lists only if you are confident that you can sell such houses or offices.
Vacant House Lists
Landlords with vacant houses might suffer losses and want to sell them. They form a considerable chunk of a real estate agency’s client base.
Compiling a real estate mailing list of all vacant places in a specific location and getting the contact details of the homeowners can be advantageous. Write to them as soon as you get the list and improve your chances of converting another prospect!
Tax Defaulters
People who have defaulted on their taxes risk losing their property or having the authorities place a lien on their homes. They are distressed homeowners who you can target using custom commercial real estate mailing lists and convert them into profitable clients.
Property Types
Many agencies acquire real estate mailing lists based on the property type. It helps them specialize in their services and serve a niche market.
- Commercial
- Residential
- Single-family houses
- Townhouses and condos
- Multi-family dwellings
- Apartment houses
- Duplexes and triplexes, etc.
Location-Specific Real Estate Mailing Lists
You may select specific neighborhoods, cities, or states as your target audience. This location-based real estate mailing lists direct marketing can help you expand your local connections and get more leads. You can also select specific ZIP codes to target based on the niches you want to dominate.
PostGrid’s direct mail API can help you to compile such segmented mailing lists in the blink of an eye. You can select the necessary demographics and location and get a real estate advertising mailing list through your dashboard.
How to Build Targeted Real Estate Mailing Lists?
Compiling a mailing list is not a one-time job. It requires planning, constant updates, and dedication. Below are the steps you can use to build and nurture effective realtor mailing lists for your agency:
The Decision-Making Stage
Before you gather your prospects’ delivery addresses and form a list, your agency must arrive at some conclusions. It must go through the decision-making process or design a framework for your upcoming steps. These decisions also define your objectives and dictate how to use your realtor mailing list for the campaign.
#1 Settle On Your Proposal
List down the type of clients you serve to determine where to start. You cannot promote a two-bedroom apartment to a person looking to rent a commercial property. Try to narrow down your services and draft a thoughtful proposal.
Decide the sources to derive a real estate mailing list if you have multiple property types for sale or your services apply to more than one demographic.
#2 Determine Your Audience
Try answering questions, like
- Who are your target clients?
- Are there some common characteristics among your existing clients?
- Do you know the buyer personas of your client base?
Some agencies do well with commercial real estate mailing lists, though others see results when they use residential ones. It depends on your market reputation, online reviews, past clients, location, and the effectiveness of your commercial real estate crm, etc.
For instance, you might get more success with a real estate mailing list consisting of villa properties if you stay in a tourist town. Similarly, agencies having offices in a commercial locality should send direct mail items to people who want to buy, sell, or rent an office property.
Remember that other factors, including income levels, profession, marital status, etc., come into play when compiling real estate mailing lists for a campaign. Choose an automated service provider like PostGrid to help you build them from scratch without spending a fortune.
#3 Decide a Budget
Your budget decides the scope of your direct mail marketing campaigns. It helps you determine how many people you can target under your program.
Your marketing budget also defines your realtor mailing list quality and volume. If your budget is low, you may contact generic list-selling companies that can provide you with affordable lists. The addresses might not be up-to-date, but you can conduct your campaign at low costs.
Or you can get a high-quality real estate mailing list at reasonable prices using PostGrid’s direct mail services. With PostGrid, you can ensure up to 99.99% deliverability rates and guaranteed responses with customized lists.
Real Estate Mailing List Compilation and Automation
After you decide what you need, you may move ahead with the compilation stage.
#4 Dig Your Existing Databases
If you are new in business, you may collect the names and addresses of everyone you know and their referrals. But in-house data is limited, and you may need external sources beyond a point.
Try to search for business cards and add more people to your realtor mailing list with time. You can use PostGrid’s address verification to cross-confirm the delivery addresses before you launch your direct mail advertising campaign.
If you are not a new agency, you may already have hundreds of records in your database. But you must organize, verify, and cleanse them to make them mail-ready.
Your staff can compile the real estate mailing lists based on your existing databases. Remember that they are limited because they only contain addresses of old clients.
#5 Send Handwritten Letters and Personalized Postcards to Receive Referrals
Getting referrals helps real estate agencies improve their brand image and produce more leads. But what can they do to attract referrals?
Yes! They can send thank-you letters or postcards to their clients and ask them for referrals. It is essential to be subtle and not over-dominate the message. The mailing purpose should be to appreciate existing clients for their business and strengthen personal bonds. Asking for a referral to build a realtor mailing list is the cherry on the top, helping an agency hit two targets with the same campaign.
You can use direct mail in many other ways to compile real estate mailing lists painlessly. Send handwritten notes to your prospects describing why it is beneficial to work with you. You may also ship holiday greetings, birthday messages, and other personalized mailers to win them over or get a referral.
#6 Use PostGrid’s Automated Direct Mail Services
Our solutions help you select the demographics you want to penetrate and create a new real estate mailing list according to your requirements.
You can buy custom lists from us for low rates and use them multiple times. There are no restrictions regarding the number of times you can send mail to the realtor mailing lists or how to use them.
PostGrid helps you become flexible with your lists and conduct campaigns that suit your budgets and preferences!
Add More Prospects to Your Real Estate Mailing List and Update It
You can use more methods to create real estate mailing lists for promotions and sales. Agencies must dive deeper to make the best use of the details they collect to compile high-quality databases that can drive results.
#7 Use Free Resources
Using freely-available resources is the best way to compile prospect data. Here are some ideas for you:
- Yellow page directories: Most directories are a pool of overflowing information. You may need to spend some time, but they can help you produce effective real estate mailing lists with additional details.
- Press releases: Read commercial press releases to gather information about office properties.
- Census data: The census data helps you put together commercial real estate mailing lists, residential lists, out-of-state landlords lists, tax defaulters lists, etc. You can access it for free and collect essential details.
- Prospect listings, reviews, and comments: Check your website and email for client inquiries. You may monitor your prospects’ online behaviors to gather their mailing addresses.
#8 Paid Resources
You can buy or rent a real estate mailing list from a broker if your staff cannot build one. It is one of the quickest and easiest ways to launch a direct mail campaign without dedicating time and in-house resources. But, it can be expensive, primarily if you want specialty, verified lists.
Renting a realtor mailing list helps you save some dollars. However, you can only use it restrictively. Remember to ask your vendor how often you can use the list before renting it. Some companies only let you rent lists for a specific period, irrespective of how often you use them.
The pricing depends on your preferred criteria for list segmentation. Many brokers offer lists at a per thousand costs. Expect to pay between $10 to $50 for 1,000 addresses to a list broker.
You can also buy real estate mailing lists that give you 100% ownership rights. You can use them in any way you want and for an unlimited number of times.
#9 Benefit From Lead Magnets
Lead magnets or freebies help you grab your audience’s attention and request them to provide their email addresses. You can offer them free resources like an ebook, PowerPoint templates, or newsletters in exchange. It helps you compile an accurate real estate mailing list with 100% deliverability.
You can do the same thing with direct mail lists. Request your prospects or website visitors to enter their delivery addresses in return for a coupon or other mail items. These practices let you collect first-hand information, ensuring higher campaign responses.
#10 Social Media Marketing
You may spread the word about your brand using social media and form a valuable real estate mailing list for your company. Use it to add links to your website and redirect your audience. Ensure that you have enough embedded forms, landing pages, and popups on your website to prompt visitors to enter their addresses.
These real estate mailing lists are free, valid, and productive. Try using blog posts, e-newsletters, and other digital sources that can complement your direct mail marketing campaigns.
How Do PostGrid’s Direct Mail Automation Solutions Help You Compile Mailing Lists?
As discussed earlier, PostGrid allows you to create real estate mailing lists from scratch. You can select your criteria and specialty and get your lists at competitive prices.
Or you can pay nothing for lists using our direct mail services to send your direct mail items. PostGrid enables its clients to compile real estate marketing lists for free before a campaign if they do not have one. It also verifies the realtor mailing list if they have an old list they want to use. Doesn’t that make everything faster and more convenient?
PostGrid’s direct mail API and software can help you with complete printing and mailing fulfillment. You can employ variable data printing and draft your mailers using our pre-designed templates.
Then, you can upload your real estate mailing lists or create them using our solutions and place an order. PostGrid automatically prints your direct mail items via its reputed network of printers. It also ships them using USPS’s shipping services, ensuring your mailers can arrive at their destinations on time.
You can rely on our services to help you launch the campaign and track its performance. Also, our mailing lists are always valid and deliverable, so you do not need to worry about mail returns.
- NCOA-processed data: We run our lists through the USPS NCOA data file to check whether an intended recipient moved to a different address. If yes, we can update the new details accordingly. It lets you filter outdated data and replace it with the latest information.
- CASS-certified addresses: PostGrid is CASS-certified, guaranteeing you get accurate real estate mailing lists using our services. Having CASS-certified records on your list helps the postal workers speed up the delivery process and drop off your items at the correct destinations.
- DPV codes: Our solutions can mark the Delivery Point Validation codes to help you determine the deliverability and validity of your realtor mailing lists before the campaign. PostGrid helps you access them in the form of a report which you can use to check your lists and make future decisions accordingly.
- RDI: The Residential Delivery Indicator helps you know whether your real estate mailing list is residential or commercial. It lets you choose a relevant USPS mailing service and plan upcoming steps.
- Geocoding: PostGrid’s realtor mailing lists comprise latitudinal and longitudinal data for each address. It helps you with data mapping, marketing, and administrative decisions. You can also avail of reverse geocoding, wherein you can convert geographical coordinates into mailable addresses. With rooftop geocoding and reverse geocoding capabilities, PostGrid allows you to unlock new opportunities and use your data to the fullest.
Please note that our direct mail services are much more than offering targeted real estate mailing lists for a campaign.
PostGrid provides turnkey print and mail solutions to help B2B and B2C companies draft, produce, and ship mailers to relevant people. We enable these businesses to increase sales and expand their ROI using the most effective marketing channel—snail mail.
Are you interested in creating a real estate mailing list with PostGrid to save money, time, and effort? Sign up here and let us walk you through our processes!

