Skip Tracing is the method by which you track down property owners so that you can contact them to use the pre-auction acquisition method.
It is most helpful if you can get the property owner’s mailing address. In most cases, this is where the person lives. Especially if the property you are looking at is raw land, you will need these tools. Obviously, the owner doesn’t live on the raw land, so you will need to find the property owner and the property address from the list is not useful in contacting the owner.
In many cases, you will be able to get the owner’s mailing address from the county recorder’s office or the treasurer’s office. The recorder and the treasurer from time to time will need to mail things to property owners (especially when they are delinquent on their property taxes!!!). So one of these departments should be able to get you the owner’s mailing address.
You can use this address to contact the owner and make your offer to buy the property before the auction.But what do you do if you can’t get the mailing address from the county?
And how do you find a phone number for the property owner so you can follow up with a phone call?
To help you locate a property owner, use the following websites:
www.411.com
Below the advertisement bar, there are two tabs that are helpful. They are labeled, “White Pages” and “Reverse Address”.
When you click on “White Pages”, you can enter the person’s name and state and then click “Search”. This will bring up a list of everyone meeting those criteria who have a listed phone number. If you can’t get the property owner’s mailing address from the county, you may not know the state they live in. But try the same state as the property is in and see if that gives you any results. If not, try to determine what state they live in from other information you might have available to you. You can also call neighbors to see if they know what state the owner lives in.
When you click on “Reverse Address”, you will enter the mailing address you got from the county.
www.zabasearch.com
This can be a very helpful website. You can type in a person’s name and either choose a state or choose all 50 states to be searched at once. You will get a list of people whose names match what you typed. There is quite a bit of information about people on this site, including addresses you can match up to make sure you have the right person and phone numbers if available.
Between the information you get from the county and these websites, you should be able to find what you need for most property owners. However, in some cases, the trail might run cold and you not be able to both send out a letter AND make a phone call. You may decide to just do one if you have enough information for that. If you can’t find a way of contacting the property owner, move on to the next property on the list.
Remember that whenever information is not readily available from either the county or from other sources, most of your competition will not go to much effort to obtain it. So if you are willing to go an extra step or two to find what you need, you will have less competition!!! Just balance that with realizing that if you spend too much time and effort trying to track someone down, you may be missing out on other opportunities that might be a better use of your time.
Assignment:
Use the skip tracing methods discussed here to find contact information on property owners you are trying to locate.
