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Skip tracing is a common term mostly used by bounty hunters and private investigators. It is also used in debt collection where someone fails to make payment and decides to skip town. Skip tracing is usually used to describe the act of locating a fugitive that is hard to find. Skip is derived from the term skip town and refers to the person being searched for, while tracing is the act of finding the skip.

However, most people may not be aware that it can be applied to real estate. If you locate a vacant house that would be a perfect addition to your investments, but you can’t locate the owner, and all your attempts are fruitless, you may require to skip tracing services. So, what is skip tracing in real estate? Does it have financial benefits, and is it still relevant in this day and age?

Skip Tracing in Real Estate

Skip tracing in real estate refers to the process of finding the location of a person, usually a property owner who might be looking to sell. As a real estate professional, you may locate a property owner to find leads or good investment opportunities. You may also use it to find sellers of interested properties.

Skip tracing can help you acquire contact information from property owners that are hard to find. It is more effective than using direct mail to find potential sellers. It may help you locate homeowners first before other investors, increasing your chances of closing a deal. Investors can abandon their distressed properties or neglect them for are while but would be motivated to sell if they get great deals.

Skip tracing helps you to find leads on the following types of properties.

• Absentee homeowners

• Tax delinquent properties

• Vacant homes

• High-equity property

• Growing families

• Empty nesters

• Old listings

• Senior owned homes

• Pre-foreclosures

• Corporate-owned

• Recently divorced

• Deceased owners

How Skip Tracing Works in Real Estate

Skip tracing offers several benefits to the real estate market and serves as a useful tool to quickly find property owners. You can choose what type of property you wish to locate owners given that there are various options available to find property owners. But first, you need to determine what you wish to accomplish based on the owner’s contact information.

Skip tracing aims at getting the owners current information, which may include:

• Phone number

• Property addresses

• Full name

• Email addresses

• Social security number

• Driver’s license/ vehicle registration departments

If the homeowner fails to leave their current address in the public record, then you need skip tracing services. This is because the postal service cannot offer you a person’s forwarding address unless you have a court order. Clear Skip's skip tracing service offers accurate data and true value for your money. Once you get all this information about the property owner, you have to contact and offer your bid.

Performing a Skip Trace on a Property Owner

If you want to perform a skip trace, the following strategy can help you, especially when using clear skip.

Planning

Planning ensures you increase your chances of success. You need to outline your goals and what you intend to gain from skip tracing. Whether you are looking to buy the property, list it for sale, or wholesale it, you must have your exit strategy in mind. You can even write down the reason as to why you are trying to find this person.

Since clear skip provides an average 95% hit rate for accurate information on leads, you also need to have a follow-up strategy ready after locating your person of interest. This will also help you determine all the resources and tools that you will need.

A successful plan will help you get the name and address of a property owner who may have the motivation to sell. Potential motivated sellers could be those facing foreclosure, absentee landlords, or delinquent on taxes. You can find leads even while you are going on with your daily life as long as you are always looking for signs. Some websites sell lists of property owners that are motivated to sell, and you can purchase the lists to get leads.

Research

Research allows you to get more information about the property and the owner you are trying to locate. You can most of this information from the internet using social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram. You can also use online phone directories such as 411, AnyWho, and Yellow pages to look up their phone numbers.

More information about a property owner can be found through running a Google search or checking public records. Friends, family members, or even previous neighbors can also provide you with additional information on the subject.

Organize

Once you have all the relevant information, you can organize it and then share it with Clear Skip. You can present it in any format, even if you only have the addresses without the names. Clear Skip has a 2-hour delivery turnaround time and offers free sorting of data records. You will get updated information such as the mailing address and phone numbers per record. Once you receive this information, you can proceed to make contact with your person of interest and do all that you had planned to with the information.

How Clear Skip Can Help You Gain Value with Accurate Information

Clear Skip can help you stay ahead of your competition by offering accurate information on missing property owners. When you are the first to get lead and make contact, you will at a better chance of working out a favorable deal before while there are no other offers. Clear Skip offers an average 95% hit rate for accurate information on leads which can help you double your monthly deals.

Clear Skip offers a 2-hour delivery turnaround time making it one of the fastest platforms to generate leads. You will be able to save time and convert more leads in a month compared to going around cities looking for advert signs on properties.

You can save money with skip trace as the accurate information you are provided with will help locate the owner in no time. Other services may offer inaccurate information or outdated phone numbers that are disconnected. Clear Skip is consistent and will get you one step closer to your next closing.