How I use code violation and vacant property records to find off-market sellers

Question

A lot of new wholesalers here are making offers on Zillow listings and struggling with volume. I research public records every day, so I wanted to share a free method that gets you in front of owners who haven't listed yet.

1. Start with code enforcement cases. Most large cities publish these on an open data portal or through the code enforcement office. Look for open cases tagged vacant, unsafe, board-up or minimum housing. An owner with an open case has a problem that costs money every month it sits.

2. Check for a vacant property registry. Some cities require owners to register vacant buildings. That gives you a list of properties the owner has already said nobody lives in.

3. Add the tax delinquent list. The county treasurer, auditor or tax commissioner usually publishes it or will provide it on request. On its own it's a huge list. The value comes from the overlap.

4. Stack them. A property that shows up on two lists, for example an open violation and unpaid taxes, is a much stronger prospect than either list alone. Three is stronger still.

5. Look up the owner yourself. The filing gives you the property. Finding the owner is a separate step: look up the parcel on the county assessor site. If the mailing address is different from the property address, you likely have an absentee owner. If it's an LLC, your Secretary of State lookup shows who's behind it.

A few things I've learned doing this:

- Work the recent filings first. A case opened in the last few weeks is an owner who's just been hit with the problem. Also check that the portal is still updating, because some stop without notice.

- Skip records with no street address. You can't do anything with them.

- Cases get resolved, so recheck a property before you reach out.

- A violation doesn't always mean distress. Some owners are mid-renovation, so read the case type.

Full disclosure: I research recent property, permit and filing records for investors and contractors as my business, so I'm in these records daily. That's property and filing detail only, not owner contact info. Everything above you can do yourself for free with some patience.

What records have worked best in your market? I'm curious whether other counties make this easier or harder.

Vince Bartolini · Answer

Finding off-market deals comes down to identifying problem properties before they ever hit the MLS, and stacking code violations with vacant property data is one of the single best ways to do it. Every week, I pull municipal code enforcement records for tall grass, utility shutoffs, and structural defects, then cross-reference those addresses with the USPS vacant list and out-of-state owner records to find the highest-intent leads. When an owner is facing mounting daily city fines on a house they aren't even living in, they aren't looking for a retail home buyer. They want a clean way out. I skip trace the owners, reach out directly, and position my offer around taking the headache off their plate by handling the city code compliance and back fines ourselves, which lets us lock in high-margin, deep-equity property deals with virtually zero competition.

Jeremy White · Answer

Thanks, Alex. I should be upfront that I'm on the research side, not the buying side, so I don't take a property from first contact to close myself. The wholesalers here can give you better numbers on that than I can. What I can speak to is the front end: in DFW I research the Dallas and Fort Worth tax sale listings and the Fort Worth permit filings daily. I've accepted your connect and will message you there.

Alex Erickson · Answer

This is great advice Jeremy, how long does the process typically take from first contact to close? I alos just shot you with a connect and would love to talk further! Feel free to DM me!

Michael K Gallagher · Answer

solid advice, any particular violations you like to see that mean "this is it" to you?

Jeremy White · Answer

Thanks, Michael. No single violation is a guarantee, but a few types stand out to me:

- Board-up or vacate orders. The city has decided nobody can live there, so the owner is carrying a property that earns nothing.

- Unsafe or imminently dangerous structure cases. These come with deadlines and the threat of demolition, which pushes owners to make a decision.

- Repeat violations at the same address. One tall-grass ticket means little. Several cases over a year or two usually means the owner has stopped keeping up.

- Unpaid fines that have turned into a lien. At that point the problem is attached to the title and gets more expensive the longer it sits.

The ones I pay less attention to are single cosmetic cases like trash or weeds, and anything where a renovation permit was filed recently, since that owner is already fixing it.

I see you're in Columbus. Franklin County is one of the markets I research daily, and the delinquent parcel list and eviction filings there are both active. The overlap between those two is where I'd look first. Is Columbus the market you're working, or were you asking about somewhere else?

How I use code violation and vacant property records to find off-market sellers

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