Every investor has had the experience of being totally stoked to find a great property, only to learn that the property owner is nowhere to be found. They might have left town in an effort to avoid paying a debt or they could have just relocated and have had no luck in maintaining the property they left behind. But you never know until you invest the effort, time and money to track them down. But that can be easier said than done in some cases.
Your solution for these frustrating events is skip tracing. This is the process of gathering information, analyzing what you find and locate the person who is eluding you. To be efficient at skip tracing you need to have more than just basic Google search skills and access. This next step tier of skip tracing is referred to as intelligent skip tracing. And with this tool, you can find out information such as:
Contact information including:
• Phone numbers
• Emails
• Current address
With these details and bits of information, you will be able to better understand the property owners situation and how you should proceed with the offer that you want to make. The more information you have the better your position when it comes time to get down to the real negotiations.
You have three choices when it comes to digging up this valuable information about a property owner. Your first choice is to slog along with the free Internet resources and hope to get the info that you need. You could turn the project over to a skip tracing firm and pay them to locate as much information as possible, or finally, you can use skip tracing software to learn about the person’s location and background.
Most real estate investors never need to dig too deep when they are just trying to contact a property owner. They really want the contact address and phone number as well as just a few basic facts. Knowing if the property taxes are paid and if there is a mortgage on the property can be helpful to determine if the owner might need the cash and be in a hurry to unload the property. But most investors are not interested in things like the criminal history or education of a property owner.
