Skip tracing 101: how to skip trace a property owner and get numbers that connect

What is skip tracing in real estate?

Skip tracing started as the way collectors found people who had skipped town. In real estate it means finding contact details for a property owner you already know by name. County records give you the owner's name and the mailing address where the tax bill goes. They never give you a phone number or an email. A skip trace fills that gap.

The input decides the output. A structured lookup, meaning first name, last name and the full property address in separate fields, gives the matching engine three things to agree on. A name-only search for a common name can return the wrong person. A wrong person is worse than no result, because you end up mailing, emailing or calling a stranger about a house they do not own.

What does a skip trace return?

A typical trace returns several fields. Each one has a job, and some need checking before you use them. In LowBaller's July 2026 measurement, email was the strongest channel, found for about 89 percent of matched owners. Phones are where most of the loss happens: Do-Not-Call filtering removed roughly half of the raw phone matches.

Can you skip trace an LLC, a trust or an estate?

Not directly. A personal-identity trace matches a person, and an LLC is not a person. On distressed properties this is the normal case: in LowBaller's July 2026 measurement, about 66 percent of properties on one hard-distress list were owned by companies, trusts or estates, about 26 percent by individuals, and 8 percent had no owner name. That is not a failure of skip tracing. It is a routing decision.

The fix is to find the human behind the entity first. For an LLC or corporation, search the secretary of state business registry in the state where the property sits, and in the state where the company was formed if that is different. The filing names a registered agent and often a manager, member or officer. Many registered agents are commercial services that only forward legal mail, so the named manager or member is the person worth tracing. For a trust, the deed names the trustee. For an estate, the probate court case names the executor or personal representative.

Our guide on how to find the owner of a property covers each of these lookups office by office.

Why half your phone numbers disappear: Do-Not-Call filtering

Raw phone matches look generous until compliance takes its cut. In LowBaller's July 2026 measurement, Do-Not-Call filtering removed roughly half of the raw phone matches. That left about 56 percent of individual owners with a legally callable number, against 88 percent who returned some phone or email. The skip trace hit rate study has the full method and its limits.

Filtering is not optional. Calling a number on the National Do-Not-Call Registry or a state list to pitch a purchase can bring TCPA statutory damages of $500 to $1,500 per violation. Dial by hand, call between 8am and 9pm in the owner's time zone, honor every request to stop, and keep your own internal do-not-call list. Some states set narrower hours, so check yours. Do not cold text: texts count as calls under the TCPA, and a text campaign multiplies the exposure.

How to skip trace a property owner, step by step

Budget a few minutes per individual owner and roughly 15 to 30 minutes per entity the first time, less once you batch the lookups. These are rough planning numbers, not measurements.

1. 1

   Pull the owner of record

   Search the address on the county assessor or property appraiser site for the owner's name and mailing address. Confirm the current owner on the latest deed at the county recorder, since assessor data can lag a recent sale.

2. 2

   Sort owners by type

   Mark each owner as an individual, an LLC or corporation, a trust, an estate or blank. Only individuals go straight to the trace. Everything else needs a lookup first.

3. 3

   Find the person behind each entity

   Search the secretary of state registry for each LLC's registered agent, managers and members. Take the trustee's name from the deed and the executor's name from the probate case.

4. 4

   Clean and dedupe your input

   Put the full first name, last name and exact property address in separate fields. Split joint owners into separate rows, and combine owners who hold several properties so you never pay twice for one person.

5. 5

   Run a structured trace

   Submit the name plus the full address through your skip tracing service. Avoid name-only searches. Check that the returned address history includes the property or the mailing address, or you may have the wrong person.

6. 6

   Filter for Do-Not-Call and stale numbers

   Scrub every phone against the national and state Do-Not-Call lists and your own internal list. Drop numbers tied only to old addresses. What remains is your callable list.

7. 7

   Reach out in the right order

   Mail every owner, including entities, at the tax-bill address. Email the individuals who returned an address. Call only filtered numbers, by hand, between 8am and 9pm local time. Never cold text.

Free vs paid skip tracing: which should you use?

You can do most of the research for free. County records, the secretary of state registry and probate dockets cost nothing but time. A web search of the owner's name with the city sometimes turns up a business listing or a public profile. What you cannot get for free at scale is a current phone number tied to the right person.

Paid services bill per record, per match or by subscription. Per match means you pay only when something comes back, which matters on distressed lists where many lookups fail. Compare services on cost per usable contact after Do-Not-Call filtering, not cost per record. Our ranking of the best skip tracing services lists how each one bills.

How to pay only for results

Traces cost money per lookup, so the economics depend on when you pay. On a hard-distress list most properties are entity-owned, and tracing them blindly buys nothing. Route entities to the registry first, dedupe owners who hold multiple properties, batch your traces, and never pay twice for the same person.

LowBaller runs the trace when you unlock a seller. One credit returns the owner's phone, with numbers flagged as Do-Not-Call and stale numbers left out. If no contact comes back, no credit is spent, and owners with only an email unlock free. The unlock also pulls the county record, including any foreclosure filing, loans and taxes, so you know the payoff before you price the offer. To see how many motivated sellers are near you first, the free market scan takes about 2 minutes and needs no card.

Is skip tracing legal?

Yes, for legitimate business contact, such as an offer to buy a property. The data comes from public records and commercial sources. The rules sit in two places: what you use the data for, and how you contact people.

Skip tracing data is meant for contact, not decisions. Never use it to screen tenants, approve credit or make hiring choices, which fall under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. For outreach, follow the Do-Not-Call and TCPA rules above and your state's telemarketing law, which varies. Our guide to cold calling motivated sellers covers scripts and calling rules. Rules change, so confirm anything unusual with a local real estate attorney.