How are you prioritizing distressed leads before skip tracing?

Question

A big lead list can be a trap.

If I pull 5,000 “distressed” properties, I don’t really have 5,000 leads. I have 5,000 records that still need to be sorted.

The useful question is not just whether the owner is absentee, high equity, tax delinquent, or in pre-foreclosure.

It’s why this property is worth researching before the next one.

That could be repeat code issues, long-open violations, tax pressure, vacancy, failed listings, bad ownership history, or some other sign that the property has become a headache.

I’m interested in how other people are filtering before they spend money on skip tracing, mail, or calls. What actually moves a property to the top of your list?

Justice Okpara · Answer

great point on the pre-market side. For off-market leads I look for a combination of signals before spending any outreach budget — vacancy indicators, tax delinquency, code violations, and absentee owners tend to cluster together. A landlord showing up in two or three of those categories at once is almost always worth the call. The more distress signals stacking on one property the higher I prioritize it. Still refining my system but that layered approach has been the most efficient filter so far.

Justice Okpara · Answer

Great question! My approach is to filter by days on market, price reductions, and vacancy signals first. Properties with 60+ days on market, multiple price cuts, and listed as as-is are my top priority before I spend any time skip tracing. I also look at the listing description for keywords like "motivated", "must sell", "estate sale" or "relocating" — those signal a seller who needs out fast.

Dominic Mazzarella · Answer

That’s pretty much how I see it too. One signal by itself can be noise, but when vacancy, tax issues, code violations, absentee ownership, or other problems stack on the same property, it starts to look a lot more worth researching.

The hard part is getting that stacked view before you spend money on skip tracing or hand the list to callers.

Carson Nordmann · Answer

Yeah. Both stacked is the goal. The filing just tells you which ones to sort first when you don't have time to work all of them.

Dominic Mazzarella · Answer

@Carson Nordmann

That’s a good distinction. A distress signal tells you something may be wrong with the property or ownership situation. A motivation signal tells you there may be a timeline or event forcing a decision.

I still think the best lists usually have both. Code issues, tax problems, vacancy, etc. can point to property pressure, but something like probate, lis pendens, failed sale, or another deadline can make it more urgent.

The trick is figuring out which combinations actually produce conversations instead of just making the spreadsheet look more “distressed.”

Sara Joe · Answer

Completely agree with this.

A “distressed list” without prioritization is usually just expensive noise.

The biggest shift for us came when we stopped treating lead generation as a volume problem and started treating it as a probability problem.

Properties with layered distress signals consistently outperform broad absentee/high-equity pulls.

Things like:

• unresolved code violations
• ownership complexity
• repeated delinquency patterns
• failed disposition attempts
• signs of operational fatigue

…usually create far more meaningful conversations than generic lists.

Most people spend too much time increasing lead count instead of increasing lead quality before outreach even starts.

Carson Nordmann · Answer

The filter that actually compresses the list is motivation signal, not just distress signal. High equity plus tax delinquent is still noise if there's no filing attached. A lis pendens or probate filing means someone is already in a process with a deadline. That's what separates 'might sell someday' from 'has a reason to move this month.'

Dominic Mazzarella · Answer

@Justice Okpara

@Abdallh Ammar

Makes sense. DealMachine plus callers can work if the callers are good.I’m more interested in what happens before the call list gets handed over. If I have 5,000 records, I don’t really want the caller figuring out live which ones are worth time.Justice, I like the DOM/price cut/as-is angle for listed properties. I’m also trying to think through the pre-market version of that: code issues, tax problems, vacancy, repeat complaints, landlords who are just tired of dealing with the property.That’s the part I’m working on too, how to narrow the list before spending money on the outreach.

Abdallh Ammar · Answer

well we use Deal machine to pull data as bulk and make some cold callers go through them and we get the answer of your question by making the CC ask them why they wanna sell, the good thing here is once the cold caller sounds legit and truthful the owners drop their guard down and spell out the issue

How are you prioritizing distressed leads before skip tracing?

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