Why a list goes stale, and how fast
A file you bought six months ago is not the file you bought. Two separate things have moved underneath it.
The contact data clock
Phone numbers decay continuously. People switch carriers, abandon numbers, move. None of that is visible in a CSV sitting on your desktop, which keeps looking exactly as authoritative as the day it arrived.
The practical consequence is that the failure rate on an old file is higher than on a new one, and the failures are silent — a number that no longer belongs to the owner does not announce itself, it just does not convert.
This is why each of our files is pulled and traced when it is ordered rather than served from a stored copy. It is also why we keep no per-county inventory to advertise: there is nothing sitting in a warehouse.
The distress signal clock
The second clock is the one people forget. A tax-delinquent owner may have paid. A pre-foreclosure case may have settled. The reason you chose that person is the thing most likely to have changed.
These clocks run at very different speeds by list type. A tax roll moves in cycles measured in months; a non-judicial foreclosure notice can be irrelevant in weeks; a judicial case can sit for years and tell you nothing either way.
A call based on a signal that has resolved is not just wasted, it is actively bad — leading with a circumstance that is no longer true is the fastest way to end a conversation.
Working with it
Work a list through rather than sampling it. A list half-called and abandoned has cost you the whole file and given you half of it, and the untouched half ages at the same rate as the part you used.
Size the order to what you can genuinely call. A thousand records you will finish beats five thousand you will not, and it costs less.
When you do come back to an old file, treat it as a list of properties rather than a list of contacts, and expect to re-trace. The addresses have not moved.
Questions people ask
How old is too old?
It depends far more on the list type than on the calendar. A non-judicial pre-foreclosure list ages in weeks. A tax delinquent list holds up for longer because the underlying arrears do not resolve quickly.
Should I re-trace an old list or buy a new one?
If the properties are still the ones you want, re-tracing the addresses is the cheaper move and the addresses have not changed. If the distress signal itself is what has aged, pull the list again.
Do you ever resell the same file to someone else?
This is public-record data assembled to order, not exclusive inventory, and we would not claim otherwise. What we can say is that each file is pulled fresh when it is ordered rather than handed out from a stored copy.
Related
Pick a county and a list type, or send your own addresses. Mobile numbers only, litigator and DNC scrubbed, and anything the county does not hold is credited back.