I looked at Austin code violation data and this stood out

[Dominic Mazzarella]

I pulled a small batch of Austin properties with higher code enforcement activity, mostly because I’m trying to get away from the same recycled absentee/high equity/pre-foreclosure lists everyone seems to be working.

The thing that stood out was how many weren’t just one-off issues.

In the Austin batch I looked at, most of the interesting properties weren’t one-off violations. 14 had repeat enforcement tags, 10 had long-open case tags, and 8 looked like chronic properties. A few had multiple open violations that had been sitting for months. One had 4 open code violations with the oldest open case showing unresolved for over 900 days. Another had 2 open cases but 11 total enforcement actions.

Not saying every property like this is a deal. Some are probably just messy records, bad data, or owners who are already used to ignoring notices. But it does seem like a different type of signal than just pulling “absentee owner with equity” and blasting the same list as everyone else.

I’m curious how many wholesalers/investors are actually using city-level stuff like code violations, complaints, vacant registrations, or permits in their sourcing.

Is this something you’ve had success with, or is it too messy to be worth the time unless you have a system for it?