"Dear Mr. Smith" vs. "Dear homeowner"

[Laura M.]

Has anyone tracked their response rate for personalized mail pieces, particularly postcards (i.e., "Dear Mr. Smith, I'd like to buy your property at 1234 My Street") vs. a generalized mailing (i.e., "Dear homeowner, I'd like to buy your property")?  We're in the process of mailing out our first mail piece. It's currently designed to be personalized using mail fields, but we're having difficulty getting the design/template to cooperate with the direct mail service we're using (we used the template provided by this service too). While it would be easier to generalize it for purposes of preparing the mailing, I don't want to take the easy way around it if it will sacrifice response rate.