What Is Skip Tracing in Real Estate? How It Works & What It Costs

You found a vacant property with an absentee owner. The county records show a name and a mailing address that appears to be a PO Box from 2014. You need a phone number, an email address, or an updated mailing address to reach this person. This is the exact problem skip tracing solves.

Skip tracing is the process of locating a person's current contact information when their publicly available records are outdated, incomplete, or nonexistent. The term comes from the phrase "skipping town" and was originally used by debt collectors and bail bondsmen to track down people who had moved without leaving a forwarding address. In real estate investing, skip tracing has become one of the most important tools in the business, used by wholesalers, flippers, landlords, and agents to connect with property owners who are otherwise unreachable.

How skip tracing works

Skip trace providers aggregate data from dozens of sources to build a profile of an individual. When you submit a name and address, the provider cross-references that information against their databases to return current phone numbers, email addresses, and sometimes additional details like associated names, relatives, and alternative addresses.

The data sources that feed skip trace results typically include:

• Public records: County recorder offices, court filings, voter registration rolls, property tax records, UCC filings, and business entity registrations at the state level
• Utility and service records: Phone carrier data, cable and internet service records, and utility account information that gets shared through data aggregators
• Credit header data: Non-financial identity information from credit bureaus, including names, addresses, dates of birth, and Social Security Number fragments used for matching
• Consumer data brokers: Companies like Acxiom, Experian, and LexisNexis that compile behavioral and demographic data from magazine subscriptions, warranty registrations, online purchases, and social media profiles
• Phone carrier databases: Line type identification (mobile, landline, VoIP), carrier name, active/disconnected status, and porting history

When you submit a skip trace request, the provider's system attempts to match your input (name + property address, or just the property address) against these sources. The system returns whatever contact information it can confidently associate with that person. Most providers return multiple phone numbers and email addresses, ranked by confidence or recency.

Single vs. batch skip tracing

There are two ways to run skip traces. A single trace is when you look up one person at a time, usually by entering their name and address into a search form. This is useful when you are working a specific lead and need to reach one owner. A batch trace is when you upload a list of names and addresses, often in CSV format, and the provider processes them all at once. Batch tracing is how most wholesalers operate, especially when they are working direct mail campaigns or pulling absentee owner lists.

Batch sizes vary by provider. Some accept batches of 100, others handle up to 10,000 in a single upload. Most batch processes take a few seconds to a few minutes depending on list size. Some providers use asynchronous processing with webhook callbacks, while others return results synchronously.

What skip trace results look like

A typical skip trace result for a property owner might include:

• 1-3 phone numbers (ranked by confidence), with line type (mobile, landline, VoIP)
• 1-3 email addresses (personal and sometimes business)
• Current mailing address (if different from the property address)
• Full legal name and any known aliases or name variations
• Age or date of birth
• Associated persons (spouse, relatives, business partners)

For LLC-owned properties, skip tracing becomes more complex. The provider first needs to resolve the LLC to its registered agent or managing member, then trace that individual. Some providers handle this automatically. Others return the LLC's registered agent address, which may be a law office or registered agent service rather than the actual owner. This is one area where skip trace quality varies significantly between providers.

Accuracy rates: what to expect

Skip trace accuracy is measured in "hit rates," which is the percentage of records where the provider returns at least one piece of contact information. Industry hit rates typically range from 70% to 92%, depending on the provider, the quality of your input data, and the type of records you are tracing.

But hit rate alone does not tell the full story. There are two levels of accuracy that matter:

• Hit rate: Did the provider return any contact information? A 85% hit rate means 15% of your records came back with no results at all.
• Contact rate: Of the results returned, how many actually reach the right person? A phone number might be returned but be disconnected, reassigned, or belong to a different person with a similar name. Real-world contact rates on returned results are usually 40-60% for phone numbers and 30-50% for email addresses.

This means if you skip trace 1,000 records with an 85% hit rate and a 50% contact rate on phones, you will actually reach about 425 people. This is normal. Skip tracing is a volume game, and experienced investors account for these rates when planning their outreach campaigns.

What skip tracing costs in 2026

Skip trace pricing varies widely depending on the provider, volume, and what data is included. Here is a general breakdown of what you can expect to pay:

Many platforms bundle skip tracing into their subscription. For example, Deal Run includes free skip tracing on all paid plans -- there are no credits to buy and no per-trace fees. The number of investors you can trace is determined by your plan's investors-per-deal limit (250 on Pro, 500 on Pro+). Some other platforms charge separately, requiring you to buy credits in bulk.

When comparing costs, look at the total cost per contacted person, not just the cost per trace. A provider that charges $0.15 per trace with a 55% contact rate costs you about $0.27 per actual contact. A provider that charges $0.05 per trace but only has a 30% contact rate costs you about $0.17 per contact but delivers lower quality leads. The cheapest per-trace option is not always the best value.

When to use skip tracing

Skip tracing is most valuable in these situations:

Finding property owners for acquisition

The most common use case. You have a list of properties you want to buy, whether from driving for dollars, tax delinquent lists, pre-foreclosure lists, or absentee owner lists. You need to reach the owners to make offers. Skip tracing gives you phone numbers and emails to start your outreach.

Building a buyer list for disposition

When you identify active investors in your market by pulling county records of recent cash purchases, you can skip trace those buyers to get their contact information. This is how wholesalers build targeted buyer lists of people who have actually closed deals recently, rather than relying on people who signed up for a "buyer list" but may never actually purchase anything.

Reaching LLC owners

A large percentage of investment properties are held in LLCs. The property records show "XYZ Holdings LLC" as the owner, which does not give you a phone number to call. Skip tracing resolves the LLC to its managing member or registered agent, giving you a real person to contact. This is especially important in markets where institutional investors and experienced landlords dominate.

Re-engaging old leads

If you have a list of leads from a year ago where the phone numbers are now disconnected, skip tracing those records again can provide updated contact information. People change phone numbers, move, and update their information. A re-trace on old leads can revive a stale pipeline at a fraction of the cost of generating new leads.

Best practices for skip tracing

1. Clean your data before tracing

Garbage in, garbage out. Before you submit a list for skip tracing, remove duplicates, standardize address formats, and verify that your property addresses are valid. A misspelled street name or wrong zip code will cause the provider to return incorrect results or no results at all. Five minutes of data cleaning can save you hundreds of dollars in wasted traces.

2. Include as much input data as possible

Most providers match on name and address. If you have both the property address and the owner's mailing address, submit both. If you have the owner's full legal name (not just the LLC name), include it. The more data you give the provider, the more confident the match and the higher your accuracy rate.

3. Check line types before calling

Many skip trace providers return a line type indicator: mobile, landline, or VoIP. This matters for two reasons. First, if you are planning to send text messages, you should only text mobile numbers, as texting landlines is both pointless and potentially a TCPA violation. Second, if a number is identified as VoIP, it may be a business line, a Google Voice number, or a virtual number that the owner does not monitor closely.

4. Screen for DNC and TCPA litigators

Before you call or text any skip-traced numbers, check them against the National Do Not Call Registry and known TCPA litigator databases. Calling someone on the DNC list can result in fines of $500-$1,500 per call. Calling a known TCPA litigator, someone who files lawsuits against cold callers for a living, can result in a lawsuit. Many skip trace providers now include DNC screening in their results. If yours does not, use a separate screening service before starting your outreach.

5. Try multiple contact methods

Do not rely on a single phone number. If the first number does not connect, try the second and third. Send an email. Send a letter to the mailing address. Some owners will not answer unknown calls but will respond to a text or email. A multi-channel approach dramatically increases your overall contact rate.

6. Cache and reuse results

If you trace an investor today and contact them about Deal A, save their information. When Deal B comes along three months later in the same area, you already have their contact info. Re-tracing the same person repeatedly wastes money. Build a database of traced contacts and search it before running new traces. Good skip tracing software handles this caching automatically.

Skip tracing for buyers vs. sellers

Skip tracing for seller leads and skip tracing for buyer identification are the same technical process but serve different business purposes.

When you trace sellers, you are typically working from a list of property owners who match distressed criteria: absentee, tax delinquent, pre-foreclosure, probate, high equity. Your goal is to reach them and negotiate a purchase contract. The volume is usually higher (thousands of records) and the response rate is low (1-3%).

When you trace buyers, you are working from a list of recent purchasers who match investor criteria: bought with cash, bought from an LLC (indicating wholesale purchase), hold multiple properties, or recently flipped a property. Your goal is to add them to your buyer list and market future deals to them. The volume is usually smaller (hundreds of records) but the value per contact is much higher, because a single active buyer can purchase multiple deals from you over time.

This distinction matters for budgeting. Spending $0.15 per trace on a 5,000-record seller campaign costs $750 and might yield 50-150 conversations. Spending $0.15 per trace on a 200-record buyer list costs $30 and might yield 40-80 contacts who could buy from you repeatedly. The ROI on buyer-side skip tracing is usually much higher.

Common skip trace problems and solutions

Even the best skip trace providers return imperfect data. Here are the most common issues:

• No results: The person has very little public data footprint, recently moved from another country, or the input data is too incomplete to match. Try adding more input fields or use a different provider.
• Wrong person: Common names (John Smith, Maria Garcia) lead to false matches. Always verify the returned address against your records before reaching out.
• Disconnected numbers: Phone numbers go stale faster than any other data type. Numbers that were valid 6 months ago may be disconnected today. This is normal and expected.
• LLC resolution failure: Some LLCs are registered through registered agent services that obscure the actual owner. In these cases, you may need to check the state's Secretary of State website directly for annual reports that list managing members.

For a detailed walkthrough of troubleshooting skip trace issues, see our guide on fixing skip trace hit rates.

The bottom line

Skip tracing is a necessary cost of doing business in real estate investing. Whether you are a wholesaler building a buyer list, a flipper sourcing off-market deals, or a landlord trying to reach a neighboring property owner, skip tracing is how you turn a name on a county record into a phone number you can actually call. The technology has gotten better and cheaper over the past few years, and it continues to improve. The key is choosing a provider that balances accuracy with cost, caching your results to avoid repeat charges, and screening for compliance before you start dialing.

Related Articles

• Glossary: Skip Tracing
• Skip Trace Not Finding Results? 7 Fixes for Better Hit Rates
• How to Skip Trace Real Estate Investors