Skip tracing is an excellent tool for locating property owners when you know how to use it, but some doubt its accuracy. Like any data-based service, its utility and accuracy are both dependent on the quality, timeliness, and quantity of the data on hand. When you invest in economic tools with limited access to public records data, accuracy goes down. Similarly, when you invest in tools that entirely use as many data sources as legally permitted, you get your money’s worth. Data quality is the defining trait that makes or breaks the accuracy of skip tracing.
How Does Skip Tracing Work?
Using this technique to find property owners is relatively simple. Public records are searched electronically, and the results are organized for you. If you do the tracing yourself, that means reading through the results of individual location and background check services. If you hire private investigators, it means paying for their time. By contrast, if you use a service that keeps a deep database of up-to-date public records you can search at a whim, it minimizes cost and maximizes your access to information.
What Information Can I Learn?
The most important information for finding property owners can be accessed through today’s conventional skip tracing utilities. That includes the following common points of contact:
• Current address
• Phone number
• Debt status of the property
• Business contact information for corporate owners
Depending on the tools you use and the amount of information publicly available about the seller, you may also obtain the addresses of other properties they own or alternate points of contact like email.
Is Skip Tracing Accurate?
Skip tracing is exactly as accurate as the tools used to pursue it. That means you need to make sure any resources you rely on are up to date and detailed. If you use free personal search information or do public record searches on government sites yourself, you’ll wind up with a mixture of old records and accurate but limited ones. As a result, you may need to spend a lot of time to get accurate results. By contrast, an up-to-date skip tracing service or private investigator with professional tools can find practically anyone with minimal effort, provided there are public records of their property ownership.
How Can Skip Tracing Help My Business?
Top-tier skip tracing tools provide you with as much publicly accessible information about the property owner as possible. That often includes phone numbers, additional addresses if the home is vacant, family size, and place of employment. As a result, you can skip trace entire neighborhoods to find the people whose demographics and debt status both match the kind of motivated seller you want to work with. That leaves you with a shortlist of possible leads to contact with offers, information about your terms, or just a friendly inquiry to test the waters.
What Are The Best Skip Tracing Tools & Services?
As is so often the case for investment tools, you get what you pay for when it comes to skip tracing. That means investing in the industry leaders whose databases are constantly updated from national public records sources that span everything from phone books to business license registries and county records of land deeds. Tools like Batch Skip Tracing allow you to search public records and see compiled information covering 99% of the population. You can search out contact information for entire neighborhoods, look at the list of properties registered to a single investor, and get information on which buildings in your target area are tax distressed or nearing foreclosure. That takes the guesswork out of your lead generation.
