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Real estate investors have never experienced a more competitive market than today. Between housing shortages, expensive properties, and the pandemic pushing buyers and sellers to the extreme, you need to have an edge when it comes to landing property.

Skip tracing is a service that can help you find more and better leads compared to other marketing strategies such as cold calling.

But before you dive into skip tracing, there are a few things you should know first.

What is skip tracing?

Skip tracing sounds complicated, but it’s pretty straightforward. The name is a bit of a misnomer—you don’t really “skip.” Rather, you “find.” A digital tool combs the internet and ad hoc marketing lists for information sold to third parties. Skip tracing is especially helpful when property owner information isn’t immediately or readily available. The goal of skip tracing is to find information such as:

  • Property owner’s names
  • Land transaction records
  • Address
  • Email
  • Phone number
  • Credit reports
  • And more

Once this information is gathered, it can be compiled into neat lists that you can then use to reach out to property owners.

What are the benefits of skip tracing?

For property investors, the more names and information you have, the better your chances at finding the right property in the right area for the right price. Skip tracing is an effective use of time and resources especially compared to other marketing strategies such as cold calling.

Once you have the contact information of property owners, it opens up the door for you to create a customized, personal connection with them. This kind of individualized attention will make your offer stand out compared to other investors, making it more likely for you to land the property.

If you are working on your own, you might be tempted to target one potential lead at a time. But we encourage you to reach out to multiple leads. Not only will this help you to cover as much ground as possible thus increasing your chances at landing good properties, but it also allows you to combine marketing strategies to make your offer more competitive. For example, combining skip tracing with targeted cold calling has proven very successful for investors.

Where—and how—do I skip trace?

One downfall of skip tracing is that information sourced from third parties can often be out of date or irrelevant. That’s why you want to work with a professional service that keeps their lists up to date.

Another benefit of working with a professional skip tracing service is they can narrow down their searches according to certain criteria. For example, pre-foreclosures are often cheap and relatively easy to snag. A skip tracing service can compare a list of property owner’s information with lists for bankruptcy and divorce filings. This gives you a good idea of the kinds of properties to target.

ListAbility provides skip tracing services along with a number of other real estate related services. Interested in how skip tracing might help your real estate business? Reach out and give us a call today!

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