Cold Calling for Commercial Real Estate: What Works in 2024

Commercial Real Estate Cold Calling Is a Different Animal

If you’ve been cold calling residential motivated sellers and you think you can use the same approach for commercial real estate, you’re about to waste a lot of time and money.

Commercial real estate (CRE) cold calling is fundamentally different. The owners are sophisticated. The deals are larger. The conversations are longer. And the stakes are higher — which means the rewards are higher too.

Here’s what actually works for cold calling commercial properties in 2024, based on real campaigns we’ve managed at Televista.

Why Cold Calling Works for CRE (When Most People Think It Doesn’t)

There’s a persistent myth that commercial property owners are too sophisticated for cold calls. That they have brokers. That they won’t pick up the phone for an unknown number.

Here’s what we’ve found: they absolutely pick up. And many of them are more receptive than residential owners because:

1. They think like business people. A cash offer on an underperforming asset isn’t annoying — it’s a data point worth evaluating.
2. Many don’t have active listings. The best commercial deals are off-market. The owner hasn’t listed because they haven’t been motivated enough — yet. Your call might be the catalyst.
3. They’re used to being prospected. Commercial owners deal with brokers, lenders, and investors regularly. A professional cold call doesn’t feel foreign to them.

The key difference is how you approach the call. You can’t sound like a wholesale-script VA reading from a BiggerPockets template. You need to sound like a professional who understands commercial real estate.

Targeting: What Types of Properties to Call

Multifamily (5+ Units)

Multifamily is the sweet spot for most CRE cold callers. The pool of owners is large, the properties are easy to value, and the buyer demand is massive.

Target owners of:

• Buildings with 5-50 units (small enough that institutional buyers aren’t competing)
• Properties owned for 10+ years (potential for seller fatigue or estate planning motivation)
• Buildings with deferred maintenance (visible on Google Street View or public records)
• Out-of-state owners (managing from a distance is exhausting)

Office and Retail

Post-2020, office and retail owners are dealing with vacancy rates they never expected. Many are quietly looking for exits but don’t want to list publicly and signal weakness to tenants.

Target:

• Properties with high vacancy rates (check CoStar or local market data)
• Owners nearing loan maturity dates
• Older buildings that need significant capital expenditures

Industrial

Industrial has been hot, which means some owners are sitting on significant unrealized gains. Your call might be the prompt they need to cash in.

Building Commercial Lists

This is where CRE cold calling differs most from residential. You can’t just pull a list from PropStream and start dialing.

Data sources for commercial property owners:

• CoStar / LoopNet — The gold standard for CRE data, but expensive
• Reonomy — Owner contact information for commercial properties
• County assessor records — Free, but requires manual research
• PropertyShark — Good for urban markets
• Your local title company — Often willing to pull ownership data for investors

Skip tracing commercial owners is trickier because properties are often held in LLCs, trusts, or corporations. You’ll need to:

1. Identify the entity that owns the property
2. Find the registered agent or managing member
3. Skip trace that individual to get a direct phone number

This extra step is what keeps most cold callers from even trying CRE. Which means less competition for those who do.

The CRE Cold Calling Script Framework

Commercial owners expect a different level of conversation. Here’s a framework:

Opening

“Good morning, [Name]. This is [Caller] with [Company]. I’m reaching out because I noticed you own the [property type] at [address]. We’re actively acquiring [property type] in [market], and I wanted to see if you’d be open to discussing a potential offer.”

Note the differences from residential: it’s more formal, leads with the property type and location, and asks about openness to a discussion rather than pushing for an immediate answer.

Discovery (Go Deeper Than Residential)

• “How long have you owned the building?”
• “What’s the current occupancy rate?”
• “Are there any major capital expenditures coming up?”
• “What’s the current lease structure — are tenants on long-term or month-to-month?”
• “Have you considered selling, or is this more of a long-term hold for you?”
• “Is there a price point that would make sense for you to consider an offer?”

Key Differences from Residential Cold Calling

1. Don’t rush. CRE owners want a conversation, not a sales pitch. Let them talk.
2. Know the terminology. Cap rate, NOI, value-add, stabilized, occupancy — if your caller doesn’t know these terms, the owner will know immediately.
3. Follow up longer. CRE deals take months, sometimes years, to close. A “not right now” is not a “no” — it’s a “call me again in 6 months.”
4. Ask about motivation triggers. Partnership disputes, loan maturities, deferred maintenance, estate planning — these are the reasons commercial owners sell.

The Numbers: What to Expect

CRE cold calling produces fewer appointments per day but dramatically higher deal values:

One closed commercial deal can be worth a year of residential wholesale assignments. The volume is lower, but the payoff is orders of magnitude higher.

Should You Outsource CRE Cold Calling?

Honestly? This is one of the harder niches to outsource because the caller needs genuine CRE knowledge. But it’s not impossible.

At Televista, we train callers specifically on CRE conversations. They learn the terminology, the qualification criteria, and the nuances of talking to sophisticated property owners. It’s not the same as handing a script to a general-purpose VA.

If you’re considering outsourcing, here’s what to look for:

• Callers with CRE-specific training (not just residential scripts)
• Ability to handle LLC/entity research for list building
• Longer follow-up cadences (6-12 months, not 30-60 days)
• Integration with CRE-specific CRMs

Getting Started

1. Pick a property type and market (don’t try to do everything at once)
2. Build a targeted list of 500-1,000 owners
3. Research entities and skip trace to direct numbers
4. Train your caller on CRE terminology and conversation flow
5. Set follow-up cadences for 6-12 months
6. Track everything in a CRM

Or skip the learning curve and talk to our team about managed CRE cold calling. We’ll tell you honestly whether your market and deal criteria make sense for a cold calling campaign.