One of the biggest challenges for investors is to identify, locate and contact the owner of a property.
Skip tracing the opener takes time and money, especially for off market deals and when the owner does not live at the property.
Fortunately, in the new digital world, you can find just about anybody.
Unfortunately, skip tracing costs time and money.
The key is to find a way to automate or outsource skip tracing.
Before I give you a roadmap to skip trace the owner, remember that you can always just knock on the door and speak to the tenant or owner. If the owner answers the door that’s great, and if not then the tenant will have the owner’s contact details.
If the property is vacant, and you need to skip trace the owner, do the following:
- Start by gathering as much public information as possible about the property, including the address, the owner’s name (if known), and any other relevant details, such as the property’s previous owners, tax records, and recent sales history. Your county may have a public facing map search with layers of property and owner data. At a minimum, sites like Zillow will have a property page. The property may have been listed in the past so ask an agent to get the previous listing sheets.
- Conduct an online search using public records databases such as the county property assessor’s website, the clerk and recorder and the local treasurer or tax collector’s office. These websites typically provide information on property ownership, including the owner’s name, mailing address, and contact details.
- The Assessor: The assessor data is usually public data and gives you the property address and the name of the owner. At a minimum you now have the physical property address where you can send mail or knock on the door. Most assessor offices also provide the mailing address. If the mailing address is different to the property address, you can be confident that you’re looking at an investment property. You can send mail or knock on the door of the mailing address.
- The Treasurer: The treasurer is usually responsible for collecting property taxes. Every property has a unique property tax account that you can view at the treasurer’s office or online at the county website. The billing address for tax records may be different to the property address. Just like the assessor data, you can now confidently identify investment properties and can mail the owner or knock on the door.
- The Clerk and Recorder: Check to see if they had work done on the property and if they pulled a permit. The permit will usually have the homeowner’s contact details as well as the details of the contractor. It’s not uncommon to get the owner’s cell phone and email through work permit documents. You may be able to find the homeowner through the contractor.
- Rental Permits: A number of larger urban areas require rental permits for short-term and long-term rentals. Every rental permit first requires a rental application, that includes the owner’s name and contact details, and the application and permit are usually public records. The city usually provides an online database with all rental applications and permits. The database is usually managed by the clerk and recorder office and will often be outsourced to a third party data company, like Accela Citizen or Eagleweb.
- If the owner is a company, you can use your state Secretary of State (SOS) website to look up the business registration. The SOS records will give you a name, mailing address and registered agent for the company. In some cases, the registered agent will be a corporate filing service, making it difficult to trace through to the beneficial owner. In most cases, the registered agent will be the member of the LLC or company. Pay attention to the mailing address used in the property records and for the registered agent. If it is the same, you owner probably registered the LLC. You can also cross reference with property tax details through the Treasurer office.
- Social media is also a good source to find owners, but it can be very time consuming.
- If you can’t locate contact details, use an online contact data service that specializes in finding people. These services typically use public records, credit reports, and other databases to locate individuals. Start with a free service like TruePeopleSearch.com or a paid service like Skip Genie.
- You can subscribe to a real estate data platform like FreedomSoft, Propstream or InvestorBase, that has an integrated tracing service built into their platform. It’s normally quite affordable – sometimes free, often around 20 cents but usually no more than a few dollars per skip trace.
- The last and most expensive resort is to hire a “private investigator” who specializes in skip tracing. Not a private investigator like on tv, but rather a “finder” who may have access to specialized databases and resources that can help them locate the property owner. You may spend a couple of hundred dollars.
- If you have exhausted all other options and still cannot locate the property owner, you may need to contact a real estate attorney to help you navigate the legal process of locating the owner and potentially acquiring the property. If the property is abandoned or ownership is unknown, you may need a quiet title action.
Power tip: data stack and cross reference the owner across the assessor database to see if the owner has additional properties. If the owner hasn’t pulled any work or rental permits on your target property, you may find permits (and contact details) on another property.
Free Data Websites
There are free online skip tracing site like TruePeopleSearch.com and the White Pages.
True People Search www.truepeoplesearch.com
White pages www.whitepages.com
Paid Data Searches
REI Skip www.reiskip.com
Batch Skip Tracing www.batchskiptracing.com
TLOxp www.tlo.com
LexisNexis (for LLCs) https://risk.lexisnexis.com/collections-and-recovery/skip-tracing
A hybrid data and lead list service is Property Radar.
Property Radar www.propertyradar.com
PropertyWire www.propertywire.com
Most property data powered real estate investing platforms are integrated into an affiliated skip tracing service.
Freedomsoft www.freedomsoft.com
Prop Stream www.propstream.com
Privy www.privy.pro
RESimpli www.resimpli.com
Investor Base www.investorbase.com
Deal Machine www.dealmachine.com
Another avenue is to sign up for a prospecting education course and use the skip tracing service built into the course. The course owner may have built skip tracing functionality into the course and can bulk buy data and pass it on to members as]at a reduced cost.
Easy Button Investor https://www.skool.com/offmarketmethod