Wholesaling and investing with motivated-seller data
Updated July 11, 2026 · by the LowBaller team
Wholesaling lives or dies on two numbers: how good your list is and how many owners you actually reach. Everything else is process. This hub covers the reach side, because that is where most deals quietly die.
One stat sets the stage. In our July 2026 measurement of hard-distress properties, roughly two thirds were owned by companies, trusts or estates. Only about a quarter traced to an individual with a full name. Knowing which is which before you spend money on outreach is most of the game.
Reach is the bottleneck
On individually owned distressed properties, a structured skip trace returned a phone or an email 88 percent of the time in our live testing. But Do-Not-Call filtering removes roughly half of raw phone matches, which most tools quietly ignore and we do not. The honest math: a list of 100 distressed properties yields roughly 26 individual owners, of whom about 15 have a legally callable phone and about 23 have an email.
That is why LowBaller only charges a credit when a verified contact actually comes back. A lookup that returns nothing costs you nothing.
Entity-owned does not mean dead
LLC, trust and estate owners are reachable, just differently. The mailing address on the county record is the reliable channel, and for LLCs the state registry lists a registered agent. These owners are often the most rational sellers on the list: no emotion, pure math. Direct mail to the mailing address plus a clear cash number works.
Where the margin comes from
Assignment fees track the discount you negotiate, and discounts track distress. A wholesaler working scheduled auctions and deep tax delinquency at 40 to 50 percent under value has room for a real fee. A wholesaler working soft absentee lists at 15 percent under is fighting for scraps. Pick the list before you pick the script.
Guides in this series
Frequently asked questions
What percentage of distressed properties are LLC-owned?
In our July 2026 sample of hard-distress properties in a major metro, about 66 percent were owned by companies, trusts or estates. Roughly 26 percent traced to an individual owner with a full name, and 8 percent had no owner name at the search level.
How often does skip tracing find a phone number?
On individually owned distressed properties, our structured skip trace returned a phone or email 88 percent of the time. After Do-Not-Call filtering, about 56 percent had a legally callable phone. Email came back about 89 percent of the time.
Is wholesaling still profitable in 2026?
Yes, where the discount is real. Margins concentrate in hard-distress deals negotiated 40 to 50 percent under value. The investors struggling are the ones working soft lists with thin discounts and paying for contacts they never verify.
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