What to Open a Neighbor Call With Instead of Asking If They Are Selling

Listing Leads is walking through nine ways to get more listings, and the ninth is the one he publishes the exact script for. He calls the old version dead on arrival: you sold something, so you are calling to ask if they want to sell too. Nobody cares. The new version changes the reason for the call. You are reaching out because something remarkable is happening on their street and you can prove it.

The proof is saves. "Saves are the intent signal. Raw views are noise." And a raw count is not enough on its own. "Six times the area average is a story." Saying a house is popular is not. The whole basis for the call, in his words: "Homeowners cannot see this data. You can." It does not even have to be your listing. Any home in the market pulling unusual attention works.

Here is the script as published. "Eric, I'm reaching out because your neighbor's house is getting a lot of attention. It has 185 saves on Zillow in the last seven days, which is about six times more than the average home in the area. Your home is very similar to that property, which means the sale is going to affect your value directly. Would it be helpful if I put together a report for you on what that means?" Those numbers are the example's; you swap in your street's. Send it as a letter, an email, or a text, and note where it ends. Not on an appointment. On an offer to write something up.

The old opener — “I just sold a home in your neighborhood, are you thinking of selling?” — costs you the call in the first six words. It announces that you want something, so the homeowner's only job for the rest of the conversation is to get off the phone politely. Nothing in it is about them, and nothing in it is information they could not have read on a postcard.

What changes is that you arrive holding something they cannot get themselves. The saves count is visible to you and invisible to them, it is about their own value rather than your production, and the ask at the end is a report instead of a meeting. That is a yes that costs the homeowner nothing, which is the only reason you get it. And because there is always some house in your market getting attention, the play reloads every week without waiting on your own inventory.

1. Open Zillow, find the listing near you with unusual save activity over the last seven days, and write down the count.
2. Compare that count with what a typical home in the area is pulling, so you can say the multiple out loud instead of a raw number.
3. Send the script to the nearest similar homes with your numbers swapped in, and end on the offer of a report, never on an appointment.