I'm curious about this, I tried recently (Today and yesterday) Emailing FSBOs from CL with a pretty generic message, similar to what I use in my area via a phone call. I've had some responce to the message (Email me back and get something free).

I'm curious if any of you have a system you use to prospect CL? In my area, there's dozens of new FSBOs per day that appear.

I did for awhile, most sellers were politely declining my offer, some were downright rude, including one scathing assessment of the value of my services, complete with a good amount of profanity.

Never got a listing from it.

But I can see where it could be a nice spot to get a listing appointment.

How long did you work on the FSBO lists, and what did you do exactly?

I have - I think - LOL - there, that tells you my success! Now I remember. It was someone with a lakefront property that I had a buyer for and they totally blew me off and never replied.

Too bad for them because my buyers ended up buying something else, but they really had the hots for that house.

I know that FSBOS on craigs list doubt the sincerity of an agent claiming they have a buyer - but seriously, it's just like us with our leads. Someone may call and sound totally bogus so we blow them off, only to learn that another agent DIDN'T blow them off and sold them something.

I personally do not send emails to Craigslist people directly - I do not want someone complaining about me soliciting them and reporting my email to craigs list and getting me banned or something. If it's a house I am seriously interested in listing I will try to find out where the house is and get their contact info (if not provided within craigs list, like a phone number or mailing address) through tax records - I never ever email directly from craigs list or even indicate that I saw it on craigs list.

I do not want to be one of THE realtors who screws up craigs list for agents to use! LOL

Speaking of Craigslist (sorry a bit off topic), but I"m finding that I'm getting MUCH less action on my listings lately - I can tell because I always post a virtual tour with my listing and it used to get 100 or so hits within a few hours. Now - it's more like 2 or 3... Just an observation...

Brandon, all of the online classifieds (not just CL) are a prime source of leads. Emails are second only to phone prospecting in terms of response rate. I haven't been as consistent as I should but for the last couple of weeks I've been hitting every ad every day, got a lot of no's and a couple of nasty replies, plenty of people didn't respond at all too. But it has resulted in 3 contract appointments tomorrow.

I'm seeing an overall decrease in traffic to my sites despite recent SEO tactics. There for awahile, the argument could be made that traffic, calls, emails, etc. were still robust, but lately even the HUD homes that I track are taking longer to sell.