Skip tracing
How to find a property owner’s phone number, from the address to a call you are allowed to make
Updated September 2026. The free method first, the paid shortcut second.
Start from the address at the county assessor, whose public records give the owner’s name and mailing address but never a phone number. Run the mailing address or the name through a reverse lookup on a people-search site, confirm it is the right person, then scrub the number against the Do Not Call list. It costs nothing for one owner. When the free route fails, a single paid lookup costs $1 on SmartSkip’s free plan, and a trace in a tool 10¢ to 20¢.
- You need
- The property address or parcel number
- County records give
- The owner and mailing address, no phone
- Cost
- $0 by hand, $1 for one paid lookup
- Before you call
- A Do Not Call check
Step by step, for nothing
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Start from the address at the county
Search the county assessor’s or property appraiser’s website by the street address or the parcel number. The record names the owner as the deed does and gives the mailing address for the tax bill. It carries no phone number: county property records never do.
What you come away with The owner’s name and mailing address.
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Run a reverse lookup on the name or the mailing address
Free people-search sites search by name, phone or address. FastPeopleSearch’s address lookup lists current and past residents going back up to 40 years, which helps when the mailing address is the owner’s home. Read each site’s terms: FastPeopleSearch bars autodialing or texting its numbers, and TruePeopleSearch’s last readable terms reserve it for personal, noncommercial use.
What you come away with Phone numbers and emails to try.
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When a company, a trust or an estate owns it
An LLC or a corporation leads to the state business registry, usually the Secretary of State, which lists a registered agent and often the managers. A deed to a trust usually names the trustee, the person to reach. An owner who has died leads to the probate court, whose file names the personal representative and an address to write to.
What you come away with A person to look up instead of an entity.
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Confirm it is the owner, then scrub the number
Match age, relatives and past addresses against the county record before you trust a number. Then check it against the National Do Not Call Registry through the FTC’s telemarketer site, where the first five area codes are free. Autodialed or prerecorded calls and texts to a cell phone need prior consent, and sales calls stay between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. at the owner’s location.
What you come away with The right person, and a number you may call.
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When free fails, pay for one lookup, not a plan
SmartSkip charges $1 for a manual search on its free plan, with relatives included. Propwire traces at 10¢ for each owner it matches, with no subscription. A monthly plan starts to make sense once you trace owners every week.
What you come away with A number for the owner the free search missed.
When one owner becomes a list
The free route takes minutes an owner and does not scale. People-search sites answer one search at a time, and their terms bar the automated collection a list would need.
Past a few dozen owners, tracing in a tool costs cents: 10¢ a match on Propwire, 14¢ on SkipMatrix, 15¢ on REISkip. None of them publishes a hit rate that can be checked, so a number found for a fee is not more likely to ring the owner than one found for free.
What a number costs in the tools
For a single owner, what matters is the price of one lookup. Prices from each pricing page, September 2026.
| Tool | One owner costs | How it is billed | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
 Propwire |
10¢ a match | Free to search. An owner it cannot match costs nothing | Try Propwire free |
 SmartSkip |
$1 a manual search | On the free plan, relatives included. 15¢ on the $50 Premium plan | See SmartSkip pricing |
 Skip Genie |
100 searches in $58 | Then 17¢ a search, up to 10 numbers each | See Skip Genie pricing |
 DealMachine |
A data credit | 10,000 credits in each $99 seat | See DealMachine pricing |
 PropStream |
12¢ a contact | On the $99 plan, or its $30 Connect add-on | See PropStream pricing |
For a whole list, the skip tracing services page prices each service and tool at 100 to 10,000 owners a month.
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Finding an owner’s number: questions people ask
Are phone numbers public record?
Not in property records. The assessor and the recorder hold the owner’s name, the deed and the mailing address, never a phone number. People-search sites and skip tracing services build their phone data from other sources, such as directories and commercial lists.
How do I find out who owns a property?
Search the county assessor’s or property appraiser’s website by address or parcel number. The who owns a house guide covers the county search step by step, including the recorder and the business registry.
Is there a free way to find the owner of a phone number?
A reverse phone search on a people-search site such as FastPeopleSearch looks up the name behind a number for free, one number at a time, within the site’s terms.
How do investors find owners’ phone numbers?
At volume, with skip tracing: a tool matches each owner’s name and mailing address to phone records. Services charge 10¢ to 20¢ a record, and data tools such as DealMachine and BatchLeads include tracing in the plan.
Can I text a property owner I found this way?
Texting a cell phone with an autodialer or a prerecorded message needs the owner’s prior consent under federal rules. A letter needs no consent, and the county’s mailing address already reaches the owner.
What if the owner has died?
The probate court file names the personal representative who handles the estate, with an address to write to. The probate guide shows how to find that file.
Can I reach a property owner by mail instead?
Yes. The mailing address on the assessor’s record is where the tax bill goes, so a letter there reaches the owner without any phone number, and the calling and texting rules do not apply to a letter.
How we put this together
| Line | Source | What we read |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Public records | County assessor and state business registry search pages, for what each record holds |
| 02 | Vendor pages | The terms of FastPeopleSearch and TruePeopleSearch, from Internet Archive copies |
| 03 | Rules | The Federal Trade Commission’s Do Not Call pages for businesses, and the federal calling rules |
| 04 | Pricing | The pricing pages of every tool in the table, read September 2026 |
What we did not do. We have not looked up a specific owner for this page. Records and rules differ by county and state, and nothing here is legal advice.