Every Door Is a Record Before You Knock
Door-to-door canvassing for real estate leads is a numbers operation. You work a territory. Every address gets a contact attempt. Most of those attempts produce nothing useful. The ones that do produce something — a homeowner who mentioned they are thinking of selling in the spring, a tenant who said the landlord might list this year, a neighbor who gave you a lead on the house two doors down — need to be captured immediately, before the next door.
Canvassing without a record system produces contact sheets that nobody reads after the day ends. Every address that was status NH (no home) on a Tuesday afternoon might be a home on Saturday morning. Every address that was NI (not interested) six months ago might have changed circumstances. The database that holds the history of every address in your territory is the competitive advantage that canvassers who run on business cards and memory do not have.
Thirteen Status Codes and What Each One Means for Follow-Up
NH, NI, LEAD, NX, Selling, LI, NS, Rent, HS, Pre-Lead, Moving, GW Lead — the status classification is the canvassing intelligence layer that determines what happens next at each address. NH means no home on this visit; it is not a dead end, it is a scheduled return. NI means someone answered and declined; it is a lower-priority re-contact after a suitable interval. LEAD is the status that drives immediate follow-up action.
The distinction between LEAD and Pre-Lead is the operational nuance that separates a well-run canvassing program from a mediocre one. Pre-Lead means there is genuine interest or potential, but the timing is not right — a homeowner who mentioned they would consider selling in twelve months, or a property where you know the occupant is renting and the landlord might be a selling prospect. Pre-Lead gets scheduled for a follow-up contact at the right time, not discarded.
Moving is the status that captures an active opportunity at the homeowner's current address (they are leaving, which means a potential seller) and at their destination (they may need a buyer's agent). The GW Lead designation likely captures a specific campaign or geographic area — a warm lead generated from a specific local event or referral channel rather than a cold door knock.
Three Visit Dates as a Contact Cadence Record
Date 2nd visit and Date 3 as separate datetime fields alongside the initial Date and Time create a contact history for each address without requiring a separate linked table. A LEAD record that shows an initial contact on April 3, a follow-up on April 17, and a third contact on May 2 tells the story of a relationship being developed. A LEAD record with only the initial contact date and no follow-up entries tells you someone dropped the ball.
The Appointment datetime field is where a Pre-Lead or LEAD transitions from prospecting to pipeline. When a homeowner agrees to a meeting, the appointment is logged against their address record. The Lead Date field marks when the record formally converted from a contact attempt to a qualified lead — which is the data point that lets you measure conversion time from initial knock to meeting.
Best callback time as a free-text field handles the range of homeowner preferences: "weekday evenings after 6," "Saturday mornings only," "call Sarah directly, not the house number." This is operational intelligence that a fixed-field callback schedule cannot capture.
Street and Address as separate fields — street name as text, house number as an integer — make street-level sorting and territory blocking possible. Sorting by street name groups all the contacts on the same block together, which is how you plan a return sweep of a territory efficiently.