$15K probate deal in under 2 weeks after coming back
Left DataSift, tried another CRM, came back. The automation and data tools were irreplaceable.
About
Neil Mattei Jr. quit college after one semester in January 2017 and has wholesaled full time ever since, starting as a teenager. He runs a lean two-partner operation with virtual assistants, focused on probate and tax delinquent first to market data. He met his business partner by messaging him after a YouTube video in 2021.
Operating market
Baltimore, MD
Favorite features
The Challenge
Neil Mattei Jr. quit college after one semester in January 2017 and went straight into wholesaling as a teenager. For years the operation ran on a custom Podio build, with cold callers dialing broad absentee and vacant lists. It worked, but only as long as he kept throwing money at it, and marketing costs swung with each month's spend. He had been an early DataSift user too, on again and off again since launch, convinced it was valuable but finding it very technical. He never fully committed, ran his business on another CRM instead, and felt the difference.
The start of this year forced the issue. Two direct mail campaigns came back with response rates he did not like. That sent him back to his first deal, which came from a tired-landlord conversation at the courthouse where he once pulled records himself. Whatever happened to extremely niche data?
What They Built
Pulling probate filings every day, then two years back
In April he and his partner made first to market data the engine: probate filings pulled daily in multiple counties, plus tax delinquent lists. Early contracts landed within the first two to three weeks but sat months from closing, waiting on fresh probates. So they pulled the previous two years in their two major counties, and that back-list produced the first closing.
Committing to the CRM instead of fighting it
The technical fatigue that pushed him off the platform before became a discipline project. Follow-up now runs through DataSift as the main CRM, and his costs sit pretty much fixed instead of fluctuating with last month's list spend.
I kind of just put my big boy pants on, right? I was like, all right, I got to figure this out. The best time is now.
Starting title before the probate paperwork exists
Their acquisitions process locks deals early, even when a seller has just opened probate and holds no letters of testamentary yet. They frame it as taking the work off the seller's plate, coaching each seller through the process.
If we can agree on a price that makes sense for both of us, our whole process is why not just go ahead and get the ball rolling?
Training a lean team like a gym routine
The team meets three times a week. Early in the week is theory on one core fundamental, empathy for example. Later in the week is role play, with each other and against a ChatGPT bot, aiming to make the hardest call of the day the first one.
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
- Tens of Thousands Spent on Masterminds That Never Fit
- Got Crushed Wholesaling Cleveland Virtually From New York
- Career-biggest payoff under agreement after a year of deep prospecting
- A 1,300-lead vacant property gold mine in two counties
- One shared database with his agent wife for three years
- Guru models demanded VAs and a big company he never wanted
- His investing and her listing business never connected
- Ten years flipping houses with no shared system
- One Call and One Text Found His Last Buyer
- A Deal About Every Three Weeks, Pushing for Two
- Eight Deals Working in the Middle of the Slowdown
- A $7,000 Mail Campaign Went Out at 56 Percent of Value
- Three to Five Active Listings in Every Subdivision He Underwrites
- Colorado Prices Down 9 to 11 Percent by May
- Callers Hunt Correct Numbers, Closers Take Over
- Returned Mail Tagged And Worked As Its Own Bucket
- 6 Deals In One Month From Year-Old Data
- Eight Months In Before Working The Data Right
- Bulk Dials On Call Tools Produced Nothing
- 100K Records Added, Team Spinning Its Wheels
- Mail, three call attempts, then the rehash pool
- 150 records a month, skip traced twice before dialing
- Full authority probates only, five Southern California counties
- 15 to 20 grand across seven months of last year
- Calling agents and MLS, never direct to seller
- No CRM, just a phone, a computer, and email
- $56K Largest Single Assignment
- A VA Pulls County Probate Data Daily
- $5,300 Total Expenses, About $441 A Month
- $210K In Fees From 7 Deals In A Year
- Every Conversation Started Cold
- No Pipeline, No Aged Database, No Team
- Random Calling On Whatever Records He Found
- Started September 2023 With No Probate Experience
- $95K Spread Closed In 21 Days
- All Four Questions Answered On Every Lead
- 120 Qualified Sellers In The Pipeline
- $1M+ Company With SMS As The Core Channel
- Tracking It All In Podio, Then Another CRM
- Doing What Everybody Else Was Doing
- Downloading Every Record Providers Would Give Him
- Churn And Burn Message Blasts
- One Contract For Every 10 Leads
- 100% Of Deals Sourced Inside The System
- $1M+ In Assignment Fees In 2023
- Almost All Deal Flow From Driving For Dollars
- Bouncing Between Tools Looking For One That Stuck
- Leads Tracked In Excel Sheets, Antiquated And Scattered
- First Flip Finished And Live On Market
- Partner Funding Instead Of 18-22% Hard Money
- Probate Cleared In A Week And A Half
- About One Deal Per 15 To 20 Doors
- Door Knocks The Foreclosure List Top To Bottom
- Severely In Debt, Couldn't Keep Up
- A Couple Of Years To Get In Gear
- Worked Hard For Two Weeks, Then Stopped
- 12 Years In Oil And Gas, Then Nothing Left
- $10K Deal From A Q3 Not Interested Lead
- Follow Up Brought The Seller Down $40,000
- Two First To Market Contracts In One Week
- Dedicated Caller Works The First To Market Flow
- Eviction Records Pulled Straight From Two Counties
- Outbound Marketing Completely Phased Out
- Credit Card Debt From Bad Marketing Advice
- Two Years Of Shiny Object Crash And Burn
- Absurd Data Subscription Costs Draining The Business
- $61,644 Net From A Lien List Rehash
- Tracks Wrong Numbers, Cuts Skip Trace Spend
- Emails The Township For Exact Lien Payoffs
- Rehash Filters: Mobile Numbers, No Response, Liens
- Next Day Follow Up Text Gets The Reply
- Lien Lead Silent Since February 2024
- No Follow Up Text After A Silent First Message
- Unknowingly Recycling The Same Data
- Pulling 10,000 Record Lists The Old Way
- 15 Heirs Signed, $37,500 In One Month
- Skip Trace, Upload To Sift, Call Fast
- Small Problem Lists Over Huge Data Sets
- Targets Deeds Of Trust 12 Years Or Older
- Checks County Foreclosure Postings Every Morning
- Bulk Absentee And Owner Marketing Dried Up
- 150 Mile Days Driving Project To Project
- Six Renovations Running At One Time
- Full Time Rehabbing Since 2015
- Sellers Now Calling In From Her Mail
- One Hot Lead Plus Tons Of Correct Numbers
- Mails Only The 54 Absentee Petitioners First
- Google Form Auto Formats Data For Upload
- Pulls Probate Filings Daily Across Three Counties
- Left A Company, Unsure She Could Pull It Off
- Tedious Copy And Paste List Formatting
- Struggled To Pull Data From Her County
- Years In California Trying To Figure It Out
- 135,000 Records Organized Into Buckets
- A Lead Every 10-15 Calls
- Pre-probate Inherited Niche, 60% Sell Within Two Years
- New Process Closed Its First Deal In 30 Days
- Thursday Deep Research, Offer Accepted By Monday
- PropStream Lists And Bought Probate Data
- Return Mail Dead-ended, Records Sat Dormant For Years
What changed
The moment came early this year, before any of the new deals. Two mail campaigns had flopped, and Neil traced the problem to targeting, not effort. His mind went back to the beginning of his journey: holding the courthouse door for two ladies who wanted to sell, his first deal, found in person at the records office.
I had that full circle moment earlier this year where it was like, okay, I need to get back to the roots.
He started pulling probate records again, this time daily and systematized, and locked up deals in the first month.
The Results
The first first to market closing was a Houston condo from the two-year back-pull. The seller had opened probate years earlier and was finally ready. Asking around $40,000 to $45,000, they contracted at $32,000, negotiated another $2,000 off, and sold at $45,000. That ended up a $15,000 wholesale deal, closed in roughly ten days to two weeks because the probate work was already done.
The mastermind post that started this interview tells the pace: first deal closing, four more first to market deals under contract, all since April. The interview month was tracking to around $40,000 in closed assignments. Before, broad lists meant spend that fluctuated month to month. Now overhead holds at $1,500 to $2,500 a month, and the goal is to push past $500K for the year.
Grateful for the community and the brilliant minds at REISift that have truly simplified our approach to this business.
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