When I sent zip letters or personal letters I got more calls but the callers were not as motivated, most not motivated at all, they just wanted me to make an offer. 

There's nothing like flying an airplane and then looking for the manual.At least you know that you the caller is not the person in charge, hence can't sell you the property.That person will have "standing" with sufficient capacity, powers and authority to transact. 

That's why folks like us typically have business phone numbers or something like Google Voice, or some service which presents a caller id showing the service's number and not the actual number you're calling from or call from your business phone where that number shows on the caller id.

The caller is the person managing the properties, tenants, rents, and repairs.

Suddenly, I'm a name-caller, I'm a racist, I'm a terrible human being with anger management issues.

Direct mail has been working fairly well for me for the last few years, but I deceided to go on the offense and dive into the world of cold calling. Ironically I ran a telemarketing firm in the early 2000's and can sa...

.- The most motivated callers tend to be (from what we've seen so far) the ones who call immediately and the ones who call weeks after the mailing.

Could be a purveyor of 'dangerous breed' dogs, trying to drum up sales of guard dogs Or a security company trying to sell alarms Or kids pranking In any case, I'm sure we can all make a strong distinction between simple trespassing/banana theft and B&E in the middle of the night.

Today he had a caller ask about REI.

Hi Kenneth, did you use your regular phone to set up your voicemail to answer your mail callers, or you paid for a voice mail to set up, I hope I can use my regular cell phone?