@Mindy Jensen There are a few ways that I go about locating a vacant property owner or locating the next-of-kin of a deceased homeowner. I'll outline the methods that I use and have had success with. I'll start with the methods that are the easiest and conclude with the more time-consuming methods.
1. County Tax Assessor's Site: Difficulty Level-Easy
This is by far the simplest way of finding who owns the property. You can use NETR Online to locate your county's tax assessor. This site is free and will have links to your county's public record databases. Alternatively, you can go to Google and type in "Your County AND Property Search". For example, I'd type in "Charleston County Property Search" (without quotes). The assessor site will likely be one of the first couple of search results. Be mindful that if you're in a non-disclosure state then your county may not make certain information accessible online. You might need to submit a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request to receive the information. More often than not, you'll be able to access your county's tax assessor database online. It will indicate who the most-current owner of the property is, but the mailing address may be out-of-date. Typically, whoever pays the tax bill's address will be listed here. If the individual is older, they may have a caretaker managing the property so the mailing address will be the caretaker's, not the actual owner's address. You may get lucky and find that the owner's address is correct and you can send them a mail piece to see if they respond. However, if the property is abandoned and in a dilapidated state, you can almost guarantee that this address will be incorrect. So we need to use more advanced methods to track down the owner.
2. Register of Deeds: Difficultly Level-Easy
If I'm not certain that the address on the tax assessor's site is correct, then I'll do some additional research using the register of deeds. By using the register of deeds, which is also referred to as the county recorder's office, you can view mortgages, power of attorneys, and other real estate-related deed information that might not be available on the tax assessor's site. If your county has the deeds digitized, then you can pull up these records online and there may be an additional address listed here. For instance, your seller may have refinanced on another home they own in the county or taken out a HELOC. The deed will have the homeowner's most-current address on it as of the date of filing. Also, this is a great place to locate relatives. While the homeowner may be the sole owner of your subject property, they may have other properties they own jointly with relatives. At this point, it may be easier to track down a relative who is listed on the deed if you're not having success contacting the seller directly.
3. Free Third-Party Public Data Websites: Difficulty Level-Medium
When you're starting out, money can be tight so this is a way to locate homeowners without having to break the bank. You can likely get 60% of the information you need to get in touch with the owner if you know where to look. There are a couple of sites that I visit that allow me to gather some critical information on the homeowner. One site with accurate data is Family Tree Now. The phone numbers are mostly incorrect on this site, but it's fairly accurate with identifying both relatives and close associates of an individual. I also found that the mailing addresses are mostly updated as well. I used this site a lot early in my career and was able to get in touch with sellers based on the mailing addresses indicated on this site. I use other free sites to cross-reference the information found between the different platforms. I rarely will just look at one source because individually, these websites are weak. If I'm seeing the same address on three of these sites and the address is different from the one listed on the tax assessor, then this may be an indicator that I have the owner's correct address. Another site I use is the free version of White Pages. Here, I'm just checking to see if the address is the same as the one I found on Family Tree Now. Lastly, I will go to Spokeo and search for the individual to see if any of the relatives match what is on Family Tree Now. You don't have to pay Spokeo to see this information. If I'm seeing similar information between the three sites, then I can confidently say that I, at the very least, know who their relatives are. Ideally, I'd like to have an address for the homeowner so I can send them mail piece, but many times your best choice is going to be contacting a close relative. We want to contact a first-degree relative like a father, mother, sister, or daughter, not a cousin or in-law. If you're still not having success tracking down the owner, then you may need to explore some paid options.
4. Skip Tracing: Difficulty Level-Medium
Technically, what I've explained to you in the previous three methods are ways to skip trace. However, I don't truly consider a skip trace complete until you tap into some paid databases in order to get data that is not readily-available to the public. If you plan on locating abandoned property owners consistently, then I would suggest investing in a few quality paid tools. I only recommend this after you've closed some deals because you're going to need to pay monthly fees and sign a contract to access these tools. One thing to note is that not all skip tracing tools are created equally. Most of these tools resell and strip down the information from credit reports. Specifically, if a skip tracing tool doesn't require a site inspection, I would be very suspicious of the accuracy of the data. Examples of these tools that don't require a site inspection but advertise themselves as comprehensive Skip Tracing tools are Been Verified, Spokeo, and White Pages Premium. Anybody can sign up for these tools online and, therefore, the quality of data isn't great. A lot of these cheaper tools are pulling their information from old phone book records, which explains why you are rarely able to get an accurate cell phone number. Landlines are good, but cell phone numbers are even better. The first tool I started out with was TLO, which has alright data. If I skip traced a list of 1,000 leads, I found that I would be able to get phone numbers and updated addresses for about 700 of them. Another one you can check out is Lexis Nexis, which I haven't personally used but I think is pulling the addresses and phone numbers from the same location as TLO. Ideally, you're going to want to go with a tool that pulls directly from the creditors, but most of these tools don't allow investors to access them because their data isn't supposed to be used for marketing purposes. I heard that TLO has recently cracked down on investors using their tool, but you can still get access if you present yourself as a reputable company. It increases your chances of getting access to these tools if you have a commercial office and you can provide a business license. If you can't get access to these tools, then I highly suggest hiring a skip tracer to do a one-off search for you. You shouldn't have to pay more than $10 for a search on one individual. There is no need to hire a private investigator because you're not looking for an in-depth search. All you need is an updated address and a few possible phone numbers for your subject. If you find that the phone numbers and addresses are incorrect, then conduct a search on a close relative.
5. Door Knocking: Difficulty Level-It depends on your personality type. This can be difficult to do if you're an introvert.
The last method I would suggest is to get out and knock on the neighbors' doors. You'd be surprised with what they know about your subject. They also can give you background on the situation so you can be prepared when you speak to the owner. I once knocked on a lady's door in a neighborhood I was farming and she had an entire notebook with every homeowner's phone number, address, and children's names. She was able to connect me with a lot of people I was trying to get in contact with for the longest time. Also, I once conducted a skip trace and located the son of a homeowner and drove three hours from my house and knocked on the son's door unannounced. He admired my effort and gave me his mother's phone number. It turns out that her husband died years back and she became extremely reclusive and afraid to step outside. She was actually an in-house caretaker for an older gentleman who had health problems. The gentleman owned the house and she was still getting her mail sent to the abandoned property, which is why she didn't have an updated address in any of the skip traces that I conducted. I ended up putting the deal under contract and wholesaling it to a buyer on Bigger Pockets.
As you can tell, there is more than one way to locate an individual. Each situation is different and you need to have a "tool kit" of great data sources in order to efficiently locate a homeowner. You don't need to spend a lot of money; you just need to know where to look. Most importantly, you need to realize that this may take considerable effort or it may be as simple as going to one website. I highly suggest that you do some quick due diligence before spending too much time on a search. I always check and see when the property was bought to ensure there's enough equity to make the deal work. I do this by examining when the last sale date of the property was. If it was between 2006-2009, then I can almost guarantee that the property doesn't have enough equity. If the home was bought for more than what the retail sales are going for in the neighborhood, then your seller may not sell at a discount even if they have enough equity. I've ran into several situations where absentee owners bought during this period and paid cash for the home, but they can't get anywhere near what they paid for it so it's in their best interest to hold onto it. I'm not indicating that a seller in this situation won't sell for less, but the likelihood is low. I would probably not move forward with locating the owner in this situation just based on my previous experiences. Also, if you see that the last deed on record was before the 1950s then this is a good indicator that the homeowner may be deceased. You can always attempt to contact the next-of-kin but realize that the property needs to be deeded to a living individual in order for you to purchase the property. For this to occur, all parties involved in the probate process will need to be cooperative. If you find that there are potentially 20 heirs to a home, then I would not spend the time attempting to contact the sellers unless you're experienced with dealing with these situations. These are a few methods I use to locate property owners, and I hope they help you out in your investment journey!
