@Account Closed I wanted to chime in and share my experience with this. I have purchased Equity lists from Listsource and actually had a bad experience with it. We got a terrible response to our mailing with it, and as I started to investigate and try to figure out why, I came to a few conclusions for myself:
LTV is a Specific Number; Equity is a Guess
When someone buys a property, that property is appraised (value). And the loan is obviously a specific number. So the LTV calculation is very black-and-white--it is what it is, so it's a reliable number.
Equity, on the other hand, requires the list provider to assess the current market value of the property, and then subtracts out the ORiGINAL loan balance on the property. They don't factor in any amortization of the loan (I asked Listsource about this); if the loan was 10 years old, this number in their equation is going to be far off. Worst of all, though, apparently their market value guess was way off too (way too low).
In short, their equity calculation involves a whole lot of guessing.... and in my experience, looking back, at least for the Portland, OR market where I live and work, their guesses were way off. Our market has been extremely hot and prices have been quite high.
In my specific situation, I was looking for short-sale candidates, so I bought a list of people with negative equity. I ran the filter at about -10 to -40% equity....and there were thousands of people on the list (maybe the fact that the list was so big should have been my first clue that something was off). I bought the list and sent the mailing. We got literally no real responses to that mailing. But you know what responses I did get? I got calls from my FRIENDS. I had inadvertently sent them the letter--the copy for which clearly said "if you are late on your payments or underwater, give us a call so we can help you"--because they were on my list. These are people whose financial situations I know well, and I know they were not 30% underwater on their homes. Needless to say that was quite embarrassing...not to mention a huge waste of money. I complained to Listsource with very little response.
