Advice on building a mailing list

[Gregory Carter]

I drive for dollars on a regular basis.  I usually drive for about 3 hours each time I go out.  I find on average 5 houses in that time that actually look like a distressed home.  Which brings my first question, does the house have to be vacant in order for it to be a good prospect for mailing or just look distressed, period?  I want to send out large amounts of mail but how do I build a good mailing list?  I usually go on my county assessor page and go to a map view and click on every house on a street looking for the ones that are not owner occupied and mail them regardless of the condition of the house (because from the assessor page you usually cant tell the condition of the house).  I don't get many responses like this and most of the calls I do receive from this are just to inform me that they are not interested in a sale at this time.  Any advice on how to have a better idea on who to mail and even on who to cold call would be very much appreciated!  I understand that I'm going to get a lot of "no" going forward from prospective sellers, but I would like to know that I'm at least spending my time mailing the best possible prospects.  I thank you very much in advance for any answers or help!