The Talented

How to Use Skip Tracing to Awesome Real Estate Deals

As a real estate investor, you know too well that some of the best deals can be unearthed from vacant or distressed properties. Problem is, sometimes finding the owners of these properties can be like digging up buried treasure without a map—futile at best.
If you have been down this road before, you will admit the usual outreach and marketing strategies most investors employ will rarely work, especially if the owners of these properties have skipped town.
And this is where skip tracing comes in.
Skip tracing is the process of tracking down the whereabouts of a person who has “skipped town” (hence the name).
Typically, the manner of their departure means they left little clues behind as to where they may have gone, which explains the challenge in trying to hunt them down. Good thing is, there are professionals who specialize in this exact kind of work whose services you can hire as you aim to find the owners of these properties.
Known as skip tracers, they work like private investigators, although advancement in technology has allowed them to shift from a Sherlock Holmes-type of approach to one that relies more on modern tools. This involves carrying out an in-depth search through multiple databases holding information that is not normally available to the public.
How to Skip Trace
Real Estate Skip Tracing is a basic, but very effective concept to find property owners. The whole idea behind it is to get an alternate address for abandoned or vacant property owners whom you are having trouble finding.
Often the case, absentee property owners don’t leave behind details of their new address so it is virtually impossible to find them listed in the phonebook. However, in the event they left a forwarding address with the NCOA (National Change of Address), there is a way you can track them down.
Usually, the USPS is not obligated to furnish you with the forwarding address of a person you are trying to locate, no matter how valid your reasons may be. They only release these details to law enforcement officers, licensed private investigators, or any other entity under orders of the court.
Skip Tracing Services
In such cases, you will need to sign up for a skip tracing service. Fortunately, there are a number of companies who offer this service, and a quick search on your search engine of choice will yield multiple options.
The best skip tracing services, as with everything else in life, tend to be more expensive. Before you sign up for the first program that catches your eye, it is good to evaluate the value of this expense to your business first.
Sometimes, you find that a simple search engine or social network search can bear pertinent information about the homeowner you are trying to find. So, first see what you can come up with on your own before opting for the paid service if you cannot find what you are looking for.
Here are a few examples of online skip tracing tools popular with real estate investors:
TLO
Spokeo
Accurint
MicroBilt
Peek You
Whitepages
People Smart