How to find absentee owners and tired landlords: the county record, the homestead flag, and the lists that do it for you
- The sign
- A mailing address that is not the property
- Free source
- The county assessor’s record
- Second sign
- No homestead exemption, where a state has one
- For a county
- A tool that filters for them
Step by step, for nothing
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Compare the two addresses on the county record
Look the property up on the assessor’s or property appraiser’s site. If the mailing address for the tax bill is not the property address, the owner lives somewhere else. Some records show it directly, with an owner-occupied field.
What you come away withOwners who do not live in the house.
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Check the homestead exemption
In states with a homestead exemption, the record shows whether the owner claims it, and the exemption generally requires the home to be the owner’s primary residence. A home without it, and with a mailing address elsewhere, is very likely not lived in by its owner.
What you come away withA second sign, where your state has the exemption.
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Sort by where the owner lives
An owner in the same town is a local landlord or has moved nearby. One in another state, or abroad, manages the house from a distance: these are the out-of-state owners investors often single out. An LLC or a trust as owner leads to the business registry or the trustee.
What you come away withLocal, out-of-state and company owners, apart.
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Build the list for a whole area
County sites answer one property at a time. Some assessors sell or publish the full roll with owner and mailing addresses, and data tools filter a county for absentee owners at once: Propwire lists them as one of its 21 lead types, free to search and download.
What you come away withEvery absentee owner in the area, in one list.
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Stack it with other signals
An absentee list on its own is long. Cross it with tax delinquency, code violations or vacancy and it gets shorter, with several reasons to sell on each record. The list stacking guide shows how.
What you come away withA shorter list with several signals per owner.
Tired landlords: the absentee owners investors single out
“Tired landlord” is an investor’s term, not a field on any county record. It means an absentee owner who rents the house out and shows signs of wanting out of it. No office keeps a list of them, so a tired landlord list is an absentee owner list narrowed by the records that suggest a landlord has had enough.
Start from the absentee owners in the steps above and keep the homes with no homestead exemption, since the exemption generally goes with an owner’s own home. Then cross the list with what a landlord leaves in other offices: eviction filings in the county court, where your state makes them public, and open code violations with the city. An old last-sale date on the assessor’s record adds an owner who has held the house for years. The distressed properties guide shows which office holds each record.
Tools do the crossing for you. Propwire lists tired landlords as one of its 21 lead types, free to search and download, and its Gold plan at $119 a month adds an AI-generated list it calls Desperate Landlords. As with any list, check a few of its records against the county before you mail.
What marks a tired landlord
- Lives elsewhere
- A mailing address that is not the property
- Rents it out
- No homestead exemption, where a state has one
- Tenant trouble
- Eviction filings, where the court makes them public
- Upkeep trouble
- Open code violations with the city
- Held for years
- An old last-sale date on the assessor’s record
Each is a reason investors give for writing to these owners, not a measured rate of sales.
Where the county search stops
One property at a time works for a street and is slow for a county. A mailing address can also mislead: some owners use a post office box or an accountant’s office, and a new owner’s address may not be on the roll yet.
Tools solve the volume. Check a few of their records against the county before you mail a whole list.
Three kinds of absentee owner
- Local
- A mailing address in the same area
- Out of state
- A mailing address in another state
- Company
- An LLC, a trust or a corporation
A mailing address shows where the bill goes, not always where the owner lives.
Tools that list absentee owners
Each names absentee owners on its own pages. Prices read November 2026.
| Tool | Absentee owners | Price | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
 Propwire |
Absentee owners and tired landlords, two of 21 lead types | Free to search and download | Try Propwire free |
 REIkit |
Absentee owner leads, already skip traced | $64 a month, 50 leads included | See REIkit pricing |
 Property |
Absentee Owners among its lead plays | $119 a month | See PropertyRadar pricing |
 Data |
A free list in the plan | $149 a month | See DataSift pricing |
Paid links. If you subscribe through one we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes our ranking order.
Tracing the owners for calls costs 10¢ to 20¢ a record on a pay-per-trace service. The skip tracing services page prices each one.
Absentee owners: questions people ask
What is an absentee owner?
An owner who does not live in the property, usually found by a tax bill mailed to another address. Landlords, owners who moved and heirs are common examples.
How do I find absentee owners for free?
Compare the property address with the mailing address on the county assessor’s record, one property at a time, and check the homestead exemption where your state has one. Propwire lists them free for a whole area.
How can I find out who owns an abandoned property?
Look the address up on the county assessor’s site for the owner and mailing address. If the owner has died, the probate court file names who handles the estate.
Can I run a title search myself?
You can read the recorder’s index of deeds and filings for the property, which shows who owns it and what is recorded against it. A title company’s report gives a formal answer for a fee.
Why do investors look for absentee owners?
An owner who lives elsewhere manages the house from a distance and has no home of their own to move out of, which is the reason investors give for writing to them. It is a premise, not a measured rate.
What is an out-of-state owner?
An absentee owner whose mailing address is in another state. On a list, the mailing state is enough to sort them out.
Are absentee owners usually landlords?
Many are, because a rental property’s tax bill goes to the landlord. Others inherited the house, moved and kept it, or own it as a second home. The record shows the mailing address, not the reason.
What is a tired landlord?
An investor’s name for an absentee owner who rents the property out and shows signs of wanting to stop: eviction filings, code violations, or years of ownership. It is not a category on any public record.
How do I find tired landlords?
Start from an absentee owner list, keep the homes with no homestead exemption, and cross it with eviction filings from the county court, where they are public, and open code violations from the city. Propwire lists tired landlords as one of its free lead types.
How do I contact absentee owners?
Write to the mailing address on the tax record, where the owner receives the bill. To call, trace the owner first and scrub the numbers against the Do Not Call list.
Where to go from here
How we put this together
- County assessor records, for the mailing address, owner-occupied and homestead fields
- The pages of each tool in the table that name absentee owners, read September 2026
- Propwire’s lead types, read September 2026, and its Gold page, read November 2026, for the tired landlord lists
We have not built an absentee list for this page. Homestead rules and record fields differ by state and county.