DataSift

Data Strategy

Doors Per Deal

How many properties you market to close one deal. Lower is better.

15 min read Companion: Data Priority Pyramid
A field of dim door outlines receding into darkness, with one door lit and open
The Metric

Market to 206 doors. Or market to 25.

Doors per deal: how many properties you market to close one deal. It is how you rank every list, score, and ZIP before you spend.

206Doors per deal, blind Knox County pull
8.2x more efficient
25.3Doors per deal, AI Investor Score 90+

The blind pull is the number to beat. Anything well below it is a real edge.

Ty's Tip

Don't pull 10,000 records from PropStream and just blindly market to it. Spend the time to do this process.

Elite, Strong, Volume. Know the band before you pull the list.

Three bands sort every pull by effort. The band decides how you work the list, not whether it can work.

ELITE STRONG VOLUME under 10 doors 10 to 35 over 35 7.2 Blount AI 95+ 34.9 Absentee + Low Income 206 Blind Knox pull
Knox County · By The Pull
Blind SFR pull206
AI Investor Score 90+25.3
Absentee + Low Income combo34.9
Best ZIP (37914)104.9

Doors per deal. Same county, same six months. Only the pull changed.

The efficiency ladder.

Every step up the AI cutoff buys efficiency and costs coverage. Drag the cutoff and watch both move.

Bar chart: Knox County doors per deal falling from 207 at AI cutoff 5 to 25.3 at cutoff 90
Raising the cutoff walks Knox County from 207 doors per deal to 25.3. The dashed line is the blind-pull baseline.
AI Investor Score cutoff: 80+
32.0
doors per deal
Strong
6,503
records in the live pull
203
deals it contained
6.4x
more efficient than a blind pull
$54k
median gross per deal
27.2% of the county's investor deals still inside the list
What this costs

Precision costs coverage. AI 90+ is 8.2x more efficient but holds 12.6% of Knox deals. The pyramid's coverage tiers exist for the rest.

5-DAY DEAL FLOW CHALLENGE

Next live cohort: Monday, August 24 to August 28

5 days live with Ty. 33 interactive modules. A community of 1,047+ investors. Save your seat in the next cohort. Already enrolled? Use this guide as your between-session refresher.

Effort is half the picture. Payoff is the other half.

Plot effort against median gross and the traps show themselves.

Scatter plot of Knox lists: doors per deal versus median gross profit, with negative-margin and small-sample outliers flagged
Every high-confidence Knox list and combo. Left means less effort, higher means more profit. The two hollow points are the traps.

The negative-margin trap

Bad Credit + Out-of-State runs 10.4 doors per deal and loses $5k per deal. Sharp is not the same as profitable. Read both axes.

The small-sample mirage

Notice of Default reads 13.6 doors and $153k gross from 8 deals. Directional, not bankable. Act on high-confidence rows first.

Three levers move the number.

What you pull, where you pull it, and which signal you trust.

1. Stack complementary owner signals

Two mild signals on the same owner multiply. The combo beats both parents.

Bar chart: Absentee alone 105.9 doors per deal, Low Income alone 62.3, the combo 34.9
Knox County: Absentee alone 105.9, Low Income alone 62.3, together 34.9 doors per deal.
Common mistake

Combining owner situations makes the list more efficient. Stacking distress on top of the AI score does the opposite: 48.4 doors versus 30.6 for the score alone in the 922-deal backtest. The score already accounts for distress.

2. Move one ZIP over

Knox runs 105 to 586 doors per deal by ZIP: a 5.6x spread inside one county.

Horizontal bar chart of Knox County ZIP codes by doors per deal, from 105 to 586
37914 and 37917 run at about half the county baseline. 37922 makes you work 5.6x harder for the same contract.

3. Trust strong signals, skip dead weight

A bad roof is a 5.6x signal. A bad driveway is dead weight.

Horizontal bar chart of driving-for-dollars visual signals by doors per deal, bad roof strongest at 44, bad driveway weakest at 180
Driving-for-Dollars signals, Knox + Blount metro. D4D supply is estimated and metro-level: a coverage overlay, never a one-to-one ranking.

The number ranks lists. The funnel times them.

Doors per deal measures effort. Funnel position tells you how fast a list pays and how crowded it is.

Sales cycle 4 to 7 mo our probate average
First to Market Obituary, pre-probate, probate Pipeline builder. You reach owners first and build rapport for months.
Saturation Near zero often the only call they get
Sales cycle Faster real motivation, no deadline
Niche Volume Senior, vacant, absentee stacks Volume engine. Huge lists, steady deals, few investors willing to work them.
Saturation Low hard to reach, so few compete
Sales cycle Fastest a deadline forces the sale
Deadline Distress Foreclosure, notice of default Fast closer. Sharpest ratios in the county, and every competitor knows it.
Saturation Maxed every dialer runs this list

The full read blends four inputs: doors per deal, saturation, how hard the owner is to reach, and cycle speed.

Doors Per Deal · By Funnel Stage
First-to-Market aggregate (typical 50 to 75)66
Senior list, Knox (middle)198.5
Absentee + Low Income, Knox (middle)34.9
Notice of Default, Knox (bottom, 8-deal sample)13.6

Ranked by doors alone, the funnel reads upside down. The sharpest list is the most crowded. The heaviest one keeps producing because almost nobody works it.

Ty's Tip

We door knocked foreclosure lists and traction was strong. The same owners barely answered our calls: every investor in town dials that list. Saturated lists need a higher-quality touch.

The rule

Run all three at once. The top builds next quarter's pipeline, the middle feeds this month, the bottom pays fastest if you upgrade the touch. Build the top with First-to-Market Data; work deceased-owner lists with Deep Prospecting.

Where these numbers come from.

Every figure on this page traces to one master research file. Here is its recipe.

The window

Six complete months, December 2025 to May 2026. Single-family, off-market, sold to an investor. Knox and Blount counties, TN.

The supply

Live SiftMap list counts: the exact record count each lever returns today, pulled on an account with off-market AI provisioned.

The deals

Sold-to-investor transactions back-tested against each list. If the property sold to an investor and sat on your list, it counts.

The confidence

High-confidence rows are large enough samples to act on. Thin samples sit below a SPECULATIVE divider: directional only.

These numbers move with the window. The earlier 922-deal backtest set the curriculum band at 22.8 to 30.6 doors for AI 80 to 90; this window reads 25.3 to 32.0. The order never flips. Re-pull it quarterly.

Go deeper: the full Knox dataset.

Every Knox County row behind this page, straight from the master workbook. Blount, D4D, and the neighborhood view live in the sheet.

Open the Full Workbook
SegmentTypeDealsList sizeDoors/dealTierMedian grossConfidence
Absentee + Low IncomeCombo511,77934.9Strong$42kHigh
Bad Credit + Free & ClearCombo441,78340.5Volume$59kHigh
Free & Clear + Low IncomeCombo602,52442.1Volume$56kHigh
Absentee + Bad CreditCombo331,41342.8Volume$54kHigh
Free & Clear + Out-of-StateCombo502,59952.0Volume$36kHigh
Bad Credit + Low IncomeCombo452,48655.2Volume$56kHigh
Bad CreditList493,01061.4Volume$61kHigh
Low IncomeList694,29862.3Volume$54kHigh
Absentee + Tax DelinquentCombo271,71763.6Volume$72kHigh
Tax Delinquent + SeniorCombo221,46466.5Volume$76kHigh
Free & Clear + Tax DelinquentCombo402,89272.3Volume$77kHigh
Absentee + Free & ClearCombo29423,71480.7Volume$43kHigh
Out-of-StateList544,38181.1Volume$25kHigh
Tax DelinquentList504,18883.8Volume$77kHigh
Senior + Tired LandlordCombo423,73789.0Volume$65kHigh
Absentee + Out-of-StateCombo464,37095.0Volume$25kHigh
AbsenteeList34536,551105.9Volume$33kHigh
Free & Clear + Tired LandlordCombo828,701106.1Volume$68kHigh
Free & ClearList50061,153122.3Volume$54kHigh
Tired LandlordList10212,666124.2Volume$72kHigh
Absentee + SeniorCombo658,471130.3Volume$84kHigh
Free & Clear + SeniorCombo16527,724168.0Volume$62kHigh
SeniorList23246,041198.5Volume$63kHigh
Absentee + High EquityCombo308,548284.9Volume$10kHigh
High Equity + SeniorCombo5616,180288.9Volume$76kHigh
High EquityList19368,886356.9Volume$54kHigh
SPECULATIVE: small sample, directional only
ProbateList44912.2Strong$52kLow
Notice of DefaultList810913.6Strong$153kLow
Other LienList39933.0Strong$73kLow
Estate SaleList28040.0Volume$45kLow
BankruptcyList421152.8Volume$76kLow
HOA LienList546893.6Volume$120kLow
Out-of-State + Tired LandlordCombo81,056132.0Volume$76kLow
High Equity + Tired LandlordCombo183,307183.7Volume$74kMedium
Bad Credit + Out-of-StateCombo1515610.4Strong-$5kLow
Low Income + Out-of-StateCombo1516711.1Strong-$5kLow
Pre-ProbateList310334.3Strong-$24kLow
AI cutoffList sizeDealsDoors/dealLiftCoverageMedian gross
AI >= 5153,675742207.11.0x99.6%$54k
AI >= 10153,675741207.41.0x99.5%$54k
AI >= 15147,769727203.31.0x97.6%$54k
AI >= 20113,919682167.01.2x91.5%$56k
AI >= 2586,418635136.11.5x85.2%$62k
AI >= 3067,842602112.71.8x80.8%$62k
AI >= 3554,65657195.72.2x76.6%$62k
AI >= 4044,58353383.62.5x71.5%$63k
AI >= 4536,39150472.22.9x67.7%$63k
AI >= 5029,54645564.93.2x61.1%$61k
AI >= 5523,24641256.43.7x55.3%$59k
AI >= 6017,96336549.24.2x49.0%$57k
AI >= 6514,14332343.84.7x43.4%$56k
AI >= 7011,50829838.65.3x40.0%$54k
AI >= 758,91824636.35.7x33.0%$55k
AI >= 806,50320332.06.4x27.2%$54k
AI >= 854,08814328.67.2x19.2%$88k
AI >= 902,3789425.38.2x12.6%$125k
AI >= 959534421.79.5x5.9%$131k
ZIPDealsList sizeDoors/dealMedian grossConfidence
37914757,865104.9$54kHigh
37917859,101107.1$87kHigh
37912405,709142.7$61kHigh
37921629,521153.6$105kHigh
379207914,705186.1$50kHigh
37919478,785186.9$22kHigh
379186814,284210.1$62kHigh
37923308,039268.0$45kHigh
37932318,432272.0$33kHigh
37938236,819296.5$37kHigh
379313510,773307.8$50kHigh
37934309,997333.2$108kHigh
37849239,003391.4$70kHigh
379222414,071586.3$28kHigh
SPECULATIVE: incomplete supply or thin sample
379026101.7$18kLow
37915131,06581.9$146kMedium
37909193,764198.1$26kMedium
37924135,122394.0$103kMedium
37721135,187399.0$41kMedium
3775421,339669.5n/aLow
3787133,0651021.7$2kLow
3780611,1961196.0$3kLow
3776413,0353035.0$30kLow
37916732646.6-$7kLow

High confidence rows are act-on-it samples. Rows below the SPECULATIVE divider are directional only. Sorted by doors per deal, most efficient first.

Six ways to misread it.

1

Reading effort without payoff

10.4 doors per deal sounds elite until the median gross is negative $5k. Always read both.

2

Trusting tiny samples

Downtown ZIP 37902 reads 1.7 doors per deal on a 10-record list. Six deals, no supply. Noise.

3

AND-stacking on the AI score

Owner combos improve efficiency (34.9). A distress filter stacked on the score worsens it: 48.4 versus 30.6 alone.

4

Ranking D4D one-to-one

D4D supply is estimated, metro-level, with no live list. It extends coverage; it does not compete on this metric.

5

Confusing doors with dials

Doors are records marketed. Dials are phone attempts, a separate Day 5 KPI: about 100 correct numbers per deal.

6

Ranking the funnel by one number

Notice of Default reads 13.6 but every dialer owns it. Senior reads 198.5 and keeps producing. Read saturation and cycle speed too.

What the number tells you to do.

The band picks the marketing mode. That is the whole point of measuring effort first.

Elite + Strong · under 35

Work it in precision mode

Small list, high intent. Click-to-dial, aggressive multi-touch, every record worked by name.

Niche Sequential Marketing →
Volume · over 35

Work it in bulk mode

Big list, thin signal. Power dialer, cold call first, six to eight attempts before recycling.

Bulk Sequential Marketing →
Huge list, no band

Narrow it before anyone dials

Cut by AI score or a second owner signal until the list is worth dialing.

SiftMap Mastery →
Sharp but saturated

Upgrade the touch

Foreclosure-grade lists read sharp and dial terribly: everyone runs them. Knock the door instead.

Foreclosure Analysis →