What it is like to get a text about your house

Start with what the seller sees

A text from an unknown number, naming your street, asking whether you would sell. Depending on the day, that lands as intrusive, laughable, or — for a smaller group — as the first time anyone has asked a question you have been quietly asking yourself. The whole business runs on that smaller group, and the message decides whether it stays in the conversation.

Why the reply tells you so much

People reply to texts in their own register. A one-word “no” is a boundary. A question — “how much?” — is an invitation with a condition attached. A paragraph about the tenant, the roof and the brother-in-law is someone who has been waiting to tell this story. Reading the reply for what kind of person wrote it, before reading it for what it says, is the first skill of the job.

What makes a seller stop replying

Three things, mostly. Being answered by an obvious template after writing something personal. Being asked for a number before being asked anything about the house. And being contacted again after saying no. Each one tells the seller that the person on the other end is not actually listening, and a seller who concludes that is gone.

What keeps a seller talking

Being quoted back to himself or herself. Being asked a question that could only come from having read the previous message. Being told something true that is not in the seller’s favour — that the house probably will not get the number he or she named, and why — because candour is rare enough to be noticed.

Sellers do not expect to like the person who texts them. They are surprised when they do, and that surprise is worth more than any script.

Respect is also a conversion tactic

Reply when the seller is awake. Stop when the seller says stop. Keep the promises you made about calling back. None of this is soft; it is the behaviour that keeps a conversation alive long enough for a situation to ripen into a sale. The seller who was treated well in March is the one who calls in September.