50 deals a year recycling one Philadelphia database
50+ deals/year across 2 companies. Text-first strategy reduces caller workload by segmenting lists via SMS before calling.
About
Adam Garner runs two wholesale companies out of Philadelphia, one residential and one commercial, alongside rentals, land, and multifamily rehabs. He bought his first two duplexes in college, then built the wholesaling side on DataSift over the past five years.
Operating market
Adam markets across most of southeastern Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey from his Philadelphia base. Philadelphia alone has 550,000 properties, so he stays in the better zip codes that still hold some distress.
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The Challenge
Adam Garner bought his first two duplexes in college with a partner, one seller financed on a five-year balloon. Six or seven years later he had rentals, wholesaling, and land deals running out of Philadelphia. When rates and construction costs killed the new-construction math, he shifted toward rehabs and multifamily. The deal engine had a harder problem. After five years of marketing, his database already covered the Philadelphia metro, 550,000 properties deep, plus southeastern Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey.
Fresh lists were mostly gone, so everything became a recycled campaign, and recycled data behaves differently. A pile of no-answers converts nothing like a fresh list, so lead flow got harder to predict and caller productivity swung with it. He had been deep prospecting by hand before he even knew tooling for it existed. The pinch point was capacity: two callers per company could not keep pace with the volume the database could feed them.
What They Built
Splitting the operation into two companies
One company works residential wholesale, with a closer Adam promoted up from lead manager. The other, run with a partner who came up as an appraiser, hunts commercial assets: fewer deals, bigger spreads. Each company carries its own transaction coordinator, so contracts never bottleneck on one desk.
Texting big lists first so callers only dial what matters
Standard data gets an SMS blast before anyone dials. Responses update statuses in the system: sold, not interested, still talking. What remains is a smaller, cleaner call list, which matters when texting scales faster than callers ever can.
Then the list is smaller for the callers because it takes more time to call than text.
Prioritizing the records that actually fall
Campaigns run in a strict order: probate and share sale first, then cold leads in good zip codes, then bulk no-answer passes. First to market probate rarely closes in month one, an honest zero most months. The filings fall later, if the follow-up lands on schedule.
What we found from the probate first to market was it's not a lot that we're taking down that first month right away, but they do start to fall down if you follow up with them every three months or so.
Recycling good zip codes instead of chasing the whole metro
Philadelphia alone holds 550,000 properties. Adam stays where values hold and distress still shows, skips the $6,000 land parcels, and lets the rest of the metro sit.
Before and After
Before DataSift
- Achieved Data Clarity
- Consistent Deal Flow
- Inconsistent Deal Flow
- Poor Marketing Flow
- Little Data Clarity
- Relied On Google Sheets
- Consistent Deal Flow
- Data Clarity / Organization
- Wholesales, Flips And Does Retail
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Didn't Understand Data Management
- Strong Real Estate Agent
- Wanted To Break Into Wholesaling But Didn't Know How
- Healthy Scale
- Data Driven Decisions
- Consistent Deals
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Inconsistent
- Little Data Insight
- Unorganized Bulk Marketing
- Strategic Focus on Niches
- Enhanced Lead Flow and Certainty
- Streamlined Marketing Process
- Efficient Use of Data
- Direct Mail & Deep Prospecting
- Broad, Unfocused Strategy
- Inconsistency in Results
- Dependency on Luck
- Marketing Clarity
- 6 Figure Months
- High Deal Volume
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Proper Data Management
- Weak Marketing Flow
- Poor Data Management
- Lack of Focus
- Manual Efforts
- Successful Scale
- Total Data Clarity
- Clear Marketing Approach
- Large Deal Spreads
- Improper Data Management
- Poor Marketing Method
- Inconsistent Deal Flow
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Clear Data Management
- Clear Data Management
- Successful Scale
- Many ways to close deals
- Large deal spreads
- Poor data management
- Unable to scale properly
- Poor marketing flow
- Smaller Deal Spreads
- Increased Deal Volume
- Platform Utilization
- Realtor Collaboration
- Funding Efforts
- Lots Of Deals
- Data Driven Decisions
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Sales And Marketing Clarity
- Poor Data Management
- Poor Marketing Flow
- Relied On Bulk Marketing
- Lack of Clarity
- Automated Acquisition
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Data Driven Decisions
- Structured Follow-ups
- Increased Lead Generation
- Achieved Sales And Marketing Clarity
- Manual Acquisition Processes
- Ineffective Marketing Flow
- Minimal Lead Insights
- Poor Follow Up Flow
- Inconsistent Lead Generation
- Lacked Sales And Marketing Clarity
After DataSift
- A VA Works Every No-Contact Lead in DataSift
- Daily Follow-Ups Run From the Sift Line Tasks
- Nine Deals Under Contract After the Stacked Niche Switch
- Cold Callers Sent KPIs by Hand Outside the System
- Expensive PPC Spend With No Return
- Follow-Up Leads Vanished Into an Abyss in the Old CRM
- 60,000 Records a Quarter Feeding His Bulk Callers
- Four Contracts Signed in 10 Days
- Three Deals a Week, Two Weeks Running
- First Direct to Seller Push in 30 Years of Business
- A $10,000 Mail Campaign That Produced Nothing
- 15 Years Buying Only From the MLS and Wholesalers
- New lender agreed 12 days after the first collapsed
- $105,696 net profit after closing costs
- Nine properties contracted at $360K, sold at $450K
- Hard money lenders would not lend on rural portfolios
- Local title companies refused assignments and passthroughs
- Seller would only sell one house, priced far over appraisal
- Still Runs on a $500 Monthly Budget
- An $85K Deal Off a 50-Name Stacked List
- 13 Contracts in Six Weeks From 250 Prospects
- About $40K Spread Across Six Months, Still Behind
- Five Contracts in a Row Fell Through
- Shotgun Lists Across Too Many Zip Codes
- One Contract Per 25-35 Leads, Half the Typical Ratio
- Each Caller Brings 16-18 Leads a Week
- 50,000 Free County Records Called on a Four-Month Cycle
- Two Partners Dialing Everything Themselves From 2017 to 2019
- VA Cleaned Every County Download by Hand in Excel
- Another Blanket ListSource Pull Whenever the Pipeline Ran Dry
- Same county-data system expanding into Texas and Miami
- $800K in revenue from six or seven deep-research deals
- About 20 people across data, calling, research, and sales
- PropStream tax delinquent lists arrived after owners had already paid
- Two years hunting a golden list that did not exist
- Bandit signs at intersections, cold calling all day from a coffee shop
- Four deals closed faster than his first three
- 8,200 dials and 25 leads in one November
- Four VAs running one calling and texting protocol
- Generic YouTube advice with no sequence to follow
- Back at a sales job four months after going full time
- Spent $35,000 on marketing with zero return
- About 35 Leads Per Deal Across 347 Total Leads
- $253K In Cash And Equity From One Package Deal
- 40 Properties Wholesaled In Under Four Months
- 12-Hour Days And A 45-Minute Commute
- No Deals Found Through Realtors, MLS, Or Craigslist
- Cold Calling From A Printed Spreadsheet In The Parking Lot
- Pulls Nearly All His Data Straight From the County
- Runs Jacksonville Virtually on $1,000 a Month
- Locked a Contract Four Days After His January Restart
- Scattered Across SMS, Facebook Ads, and a Website
- Partner's $2 an Hour Caller Hit a 1% Contact Rate
- Called Lists Three Times Then Trashed Them
- 50,000 sqft warehouses in negotiation, one to two leads daily
- $59,000 spread on his first big wholesale deal
- Every eviction filed in New Jersey, worked daily
- Old CRM buried callers in highlight and right-click drama
- Phenomenal months, then crickets for months
- Overnight pharmacy shifts, 84 hours in a single week
- Knows the playbook works and is replicating it
- First off-market contract four months after starting
- $250,000 assignment fee on deal one
- Weak cash position after funding ground-up projects
- Questioned whether real estate money was even real
- Two years spending on development deals, not making much back
- $40,000 month tracking with fixed costs
- Five first to market deals since April
- Probate filings pulled daily in multiple counties
- Two mail campaigns, response rates he did not like
- Costs fluctuated month to month with list spend
- Custom Podio build, broad absentee and vacant lists
- Owner buried beside her son after two years unclaimed
- Runs every heir search solo now
- Five heirs found, contacted, and signed across Texas
- Needed a specialist for her first deep heir search
- Paper records only, fathers listed by initials
- Probate leads dead-ended with no findable heirs
- Every No Recycled On A Two-Year Rehash Cycle
- Three VAs Clean Data Before A Single Dial
- Three First To Market Niche Filters Worked Daily
- Loose Onboarding And Under-Corrected Bad Hires
- Team Swung From Large To Small To Solo
- Broad Marketing Across Every Niche At Once
- Mornings and evenings back with his family
- 8 person crew handles whole projects in sets of two
- 40+ properties across three portfolios in about six months
- Afraid to take on payroll and a crew
- The bottleneck on his own projects
- Software job eight to five, real estate five to midnight
- 55% Answer Rate On One-By-One Click To Call
- Free County Data Replaced Every Paid List
- $45K Fee Closed One Week After The Callback
- Podio, Slack, And Multiple VAs, No Traction
- 30,000-Record Lists Dialed Two Or Three Times Through
- At Least $40K Wasted On Lists And VAs
- Four Marketing Attempts on a Couple of Lists
- A Three-Person Team at About $1,800 Cost Per Contract
- Almost Two Years Nomadic Across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East
- Behind a Jacksonville Desk 95 Percent of the Time
What changed
After five years on the platform, Adam holds the entire Philadelphia metro in his database, so almost everything he runs is a rehash campaign. Probate gets priority, and first to market probate leads rarely close in month one; follow up every three months brings them in. Text blasts go out before any dialing: texting is cheaper and faster, statuses get updated, and callers work a smaller list.
Each of his two wholesale companies runs two callers, one texter, and one salesperson. Last year they closed 48 or 49 deals; this year the two companies will do over 50. His residential closer started as a lead manager and now closes more than 20 percent of his offers.
I couldn't imagine like not having REI, seriously. I've built the wholesaling around it and it can do so much more than like what other CRMs or data management platforms can do.
The Results
The two companies closed roughly 48 to 49 deals in 2023 and project past 50 this year, mapped out in the profit and loss. That is about one contract a week across both companies. His residential closer, promoted from lead manager, now closes more than 20 percent of his offers. Offers only go to qualified sellers, which is why the ratio holds.
The before and after is a strategy inversion. Five years ago growth meant buying more data. Now first to market pulls add only incremental records, mostly probate filings with the personal representative attached. Everything else is recycled data that his own text-first sequencing re-segments into callable lists. To go past 50 deals, the plan is not more records. It is more salespeople, then more lead generators behind them.
I couldn't imagine not having REI, seriously. I've built the wholesaling around it and it can do so much more than what other CRMs or data management platforms can do.
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