Should I skip houses that look run down?

Reading upkeep as ability to pay is unreliable and it costs you sales in both directions. Skip houses for signage and access reasons, not for how they look.

What signs should I always honour?

No soliciting, no trespassing, and anything indicating a dog you cannot see. The first two are legally enforceable in some places and the third is the most common cause of injury in this job.

Does a car in the driveway mean somebody is home?

Often, not always, and it is still the most useful single indicator available from the pavement.

Reading a house before you knock

A property tells you a few useful things before you approach: whether soliciting is prohibited, whether a dog is present, whether anyone appears to be home, and how you will get to the door and back. It does not reliably tell you whether the household can afford your product. Reading upkeep as income is where this skill turns into an expensive guess.

What the property actually tells you

Signage is the clearest signal and the one most often ignored. A no-soliciting sign is a legal matter in some jurisdictions rather than a preference, and honouring it removes an entire category of complaint.

Access matters as much: gates, unlit paths, a dog bowl by the step. These change how you approach and whether you approach at all, and you can see them from the pavement.

Where reading turns into guessing

Reps are routinely taught to read upkeep, vehicles and garden condition as a proxy for income, then to skip houses that score badly. The confident version of this is mostly folklore, and it is expensive in both directions: you skip households that would have bought, and you spend your best hours on the ones that look right.

It also drifts easily into judging people by the appearance of their home, which is a bad habit to build and a worse one to teach a new rep.

The one thing worth reading closely

Whether anyone appears to be home. Lights, an open window, a car that was not there an hour ago. This is genuinely predictive, it is cheap to check, and it feeds the only decision you are actually making at that moment, which is whether to spend two minutes here now or come back later.

Common questions

Should I skip houses that look run down?: Reading upkeep as ability to pay is unreliable and it costs you sales in both directions. Skip houses for signage and access reasons, not for how they look.
What signs should I always honour?: No soliciting, no trespassing, and anything indicating a dog you cannot see. The first two are legally enforceable in some places and the third is the most common cause of injury in this job.
Does a car in the driveway mean somebody is home?: Often, not always, and it is still the most useful single indicator available from the pavement.

More on door knocking

The craft of working a door: approach, first line, reading the house, what to do when nobody answers.

All of door knocking