The guide
How to work your Short List.
From Tuesday at 7am to an offer: read it while it's new, write to the owners worth writing to, follow up once, and stop when asked.
Tuesday
Read it while it’s new.
- It lands at 7am, in your inbox and on the site, ranked. The two scores multiply, so the top of the list is strongest on both: likely to sell and likely to pencil.
- Open the deal sheets that fit your buy box. Read our take, then the numbers: the max offer, break-even and the cushion between them, the flood screen, and where the max offer sits against the as-is range.
- Run your own numbers on any sheet (rehab rate, hold, loan and profit), or set them once in your buy box and every sheet shows your max offer beside ours.
- No more than three seats get an area’s list, all on the same morning. The week it lands is the week to write.
Writing to an owner
Write to them, not at them.
Each deal sheet gives the owner of record and their mailing address of record. A letter is how to reach them: sheets carry no phone numbers or emails.
Read the sheet’s notes on where the mail goes. An estate decides through its personal representative, a trust through its trustee, and a company through its managers, listed on Sunbiz. Mail in care of an office goes through that office. Mail to the property itself may sit unread when the house looks empty.
Send a real letter, signed, in an envelope, with your name and a way to reach you. Say who you are, what you’d like, and how to tell you no.
A letter to start from
Plain, true, easy to say no to.
Make it yours: your words, your town. Keep it true. Don’t say you’ve seen inside, don’t name a price you haven’t worked out, and don’t invent a deadline. To an estate, write to the personal representative, and expect it to move on its own schedule.
Dear [owner’s name],
My name is [your name], and I buy and renovate homes in [city]. I’m writing about the house at [address].
If you’ve thought about selling, I’d like to make you a written offer. I buy as-is, so there would be nothing to fix, clean or show, and you would choose the closing date.
If now isn’t the time, that’s fine. If you’d like to talk, you can reach me at [phone] or [email]. And if you’d rather not hear from me, tell me and I won’t write again.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your company, if any]
Following up
Once, then let it rest.
If you hear nothing, one more letter three or four weeks later is plenty. After that, let it rest unless they write back.
Keep track of who you wrote to and when. Each week’s list downloads from its page as a spreadsheet, a row per target.
When an owner says no, or asks you to stop, stop, and tell us at hello@terrazzo.homes so we take the home off the list.
The rules
The rules, in short.
You alone decide whether and how to approach an owner, and the law applies to you when you do. The full version is in the terms, sections 15 and 16.
- Phones and texts. We give you mailing addresses only. If you find a phone number elsewhere, the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act (F.S. 501.059) and the do-not-call lists apply to you.
- No borrowed authority. Don’t say or imply that Terrazzo, a government office, a court or a lender sent you, and don’t use our name in your outreach.
- Homes in foreclosure. Florida’s foreclosure-rescue law (F.S. 501.1377) may govern buying from an owner in foreclosure: no rescue offers, leasebacks or buy-back deals, and get legal advice before you make that offer.
- Fair housing. Never pick, skip or treat an owner differently because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, familial status or any other protected trait.
- Stop when asked. If an owner asks you to stop, stop, and tell us so we can take the home off the list. Owners can also opt out at terrazzo.homes/owners; if we tell you one has, stop.
Before you offer
Verify, then offer.
Our numbers are estimates, not appraisals, and the flood check is a screen, not a determination. Walk the house, get your contractor’s price, confirm permits and the flood zone with the city, and pull title.
Every deal sheet ends with its own checklist for that home.
Taking it to a lender? Each sheet has a lender page: the numbers, comps, rehab and flood screen on one page, without the owner, to print or save as a PDF. It’s the one page you may share outside your team.
Be one of three in your area.
15 seats left, in five areas with room. Next Short List: Oct 6, 2026.