The record comes up at 10:40 on a Tuesday morning. A three-bedroom on Maple, in your market, owned since 2009 by a couple whose tax bill goes to an address in Phoenix. No mortgage of record. No rental ad anywhere you can find. The absentee owner list produced them from the mismatch between the property address and the mailing address, and that mismatch is everything you know.
It is 7:40 in Phoenix. The call waits.
That twenty minutes is the first thing an absentee owner call teaches, and most agents learn it by making the call at 7:40. The calling hours in 47 CFR 64.1200(c)(1) and the Telemarketing Sales Rule run from eight in the morning to nine at night where the person you are calling is, and that person is in Phoenix, not on Maple. The state rules work the same way in practice: an owner living in Florida is called under Florida’s hours and caps even if the house is in Ohio, because the statute protects the resident, not the parcel. The hours piece has the state table. On an absentee list, the column you read is the owner’s state, and the dialer’s clock is set to theirs.
What the record does and does not tell you
Seventeen years of ownership, a mailing address a thousand miles away, and no debt on the property says a few things and leaves the rest open. The house is almost certainly rented, or it is sitting empty, or a relative lives in it. The owners are not managing it themselves from Phoenix, so somebody is, a company or a person, and that somebody is either a gatekeeper or your best source. The owners’ attachment to the house is financial, or it is sentimental in a way unconnected to the neighborhood, because they have not seen the neighborhood in years. And there is a real chance this was once their home, which matters for reasons the tenant-in-place piece explains and which you will not raise on this call.
What the record does not tell you is whether the owners have a plan. Most do not. An out-of-state rental that is paid off and managed by someone else is the easiest asset in the world to not think about, and the call is often the first time in years anyone has asked the owners what they intend to do with it.
The opener
Hi, is this [owner’s name]? This is [your name]. I’m an agent with [your brokerage], here in [your city]. I’ll tell you straight away how I have your name: the county tax record for the house on Maple Street lists you in Phoenix, and I call owners who live out of the area about once a year. If that’s not a call you want, tell me and I won’t make it again. Otherwise I have one question and it’s not whether you want to sell.
The disclosure does the same work it does everywhere else on this site, per the opening lines standard, with one addition: the city. An out-of-state owner’s first thought is “who is this and how do they know where I live,” and the answer, a public record and a local agent, is the one that lets the call continue. The exit is offered before the question. And the last sentence disarms the thing they are bracing for, because every other call they have had about that house opened with “would you consider selling,” usually from someone who wanted to buy it cheap.
The first question is not the sale
Who looks after the house for you?
That is the question. It is answerable, it is not a pitch, and the answer tells you more than “would you sell” ever could. A management company means the owners are hands-off and the manager is the person who knows the tenant, the lease end and the condition; get the company’s name and note it. A relative or a friend means the arrangement is informal and probably fragile. “Nobody, it’s empty” is a different call entirely and usually a short one. “My sister lives there” is a family matter and the conversation is about her plans as much as theirs.
Then the second question, which is the hub’s, phrased for a person who has not thought about it: “Is it something you’re keeping for the long run, or is it more that nobody’s had a reason to decide?” That sentence gives the owner permission to say what is usually true, which is the second thing, without making them feel careless.
The three answers
“We’re keeping it.” Most owners say this first, and some mean it. The response is short and it asks for two things: the month the current lease ends, if they know it, and permission to call sixty days before that, which is the lease-end call set up a year in advance. Owners who are keeping it do not mind that question. Owners who are not quite keeping it hear a reasonable person asking a reasonable thing and often soften on the spot. Either way, the record gets a lease date, a manager’s name and a permission.
“Honestly, nobody’s decided.” This is the answer the second question was built to get, and the temptation is to pounce on it. Do not. The next question is about the numbers, in their figures: what it rents for, what the manager takes, what the last turnover cost them, and whether they have ever had anyone tell them what it would bring. Most out-of-state owners know the rent and nothing else. Offer the one thing you have, which is what the house would sell for now, occupied and vacant, as two numbers, with no obligation, sent by email, and ask for a call the week after they have it. Do not raise the tax questions. They will, and when they do, the answer is the tenant-in-place piece’s answer: those go to their CPA, and the date they moved out of the house, if they ever lived in it, is a fact worth knowing before that conversation.
“The manager handles all that,” or “we have someone.” Then the manager is the next call, and the owner’s blessing is the thing to get before making it: “Would you mind if I sent the two numbers to them as well?” A manager who sells listings for their owners is a competitor with a relationship, and the conversation with the owner ends politely. A manager who only manages is a future source of every lease-end date in their portfolio, and the owner’s introduction is how that relationship starts.
| The owner says | Your next line | The record |
|---|---|---|
| “Keeping it.” | The lease end month, and permission for the sixty-day call | Hold; manager’s name; lease end; permission and date |
| “Nobody’s decided.” | Their numbers: rent, management, last turnover; the two sale numbers offered by email; a call the week after | Undecided; rent and manager; email sent date; callback date; their words |
| “The manager handles it.” | Permission to send the numbers to the manager too | Manager’s name and role; whether the manager lists; owner’s blessing yes or no |
| “It’s empty.” | How long, and why; the two numbers, with the vacant one first | Vacant since; reason; callback |
| “My sister lives there.” | What her plans are, and whether the owners would sell to her | Occupant relationship; the family question; a date if there is one |
| “Take me off your list.” | “Done. You won’t hear from me.” | Internal do-not-call, honored across the company |
The manager as source
Nobody on an absentee list is more useful, and less called, than a property manager who does not also sell. They know when every lease in their book ends, they know which owners are tired, and they are often the person an owner asks first when the thought of selling occurs. The introduction from one owner is the way in, and the offer to the manager is the same two numbers, occupied and vacant, for any property in their book whose owner asks. Owners who resist are the subject of the landlord objections piece; the manager rarely does, because a manager who brings an owner a good sale keeps the owner for the next purchase.
Working the list
This file is short, it moves slowly, and each contact on it is worth more than most of what an agent dials, which is the reason the single-line rule applies to it without exception. Sort it by the owner’s time zone before the block, so that the Pacific owners come up at the end of a morning block and the Eastern ones at the start of an afternoon. Call each owner about once a year unless they gave you a date, honor every stop request immediately, and keep the manager’s name on the record, because two years from now the manager may be the one who calls you.
The landlord hub frames every owner conversation as hold, lease or sell. The absentee owner has usually not chosen, and the agent who asks who looks after the house, waits for the clock in Phoenix, and sends two honest numbers is often the first person who has asked them to.