Skip tracing
What skip tracing is in real estate, and what a trace can and cannot tell you
Updated September 2026. The free method first, the paid shortcut second.
In real estate, skip tracing is finding the contact information for a property owner when all you have is the property. You take the owner’s name and mailing address from the county record and match them to the phone numbers and emails that people-search databases hold for that person. One owner can be traced by hand for free. Data tools and tracing services trace a whole list at once, for 8¢ to 20¢ a record, or inside a plan’s monthly allowance.
- It starts from
- The owner’s name and mailing address
- It returns
- Phone numbers, emails, relatives, past addresses
- Cost
- $0 by hand, 8¢ to 20¢ a record in tools
- After it
- Do Not Call and consent rules apply to your calls
A skip trace, step by step
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Start from the county record
A trace needs a person, and the property gives you one. The county assessor’s record names the owner as the deed does and gives the address the tax bill goes to. When the owner is a company or a trust, the state business registry names the people behind it.
What you come away with A name and an address to match on.
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Match the name to one person
People-search databases build their records from public sources such as court filings and property records, and from commercial sources such as phone directories and marketing lists. A trace looks for the person whose name, age and past addresses fit the owner. Common names are where it goes wrong, because several people can fit.
What you come away with One person, confirmed on age, relatives and past addresses.
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Collect the numbers and emails
A trace usually returns several phone numbers and emails for the person, some of them years old. Nothing on the record proves which number still rings the owner. Services that mark each number as mobile or landline help you decide the order to try them in.
What you come away with Numbers and emails to try, with no guarantee which one works.
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Scrub the numbers before you call
Check each number against the National Do Not Call Registry. Businesses get access through the Federal Trade Commission’s telemarketer site, and the first five area codes are free. Telemarketing rules also expect you to keep a list of everyone who asks not to be called again, and to honor it.
What you come away with A list you are allowed to call.
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Call, text or mail, and log what happens
Federal rules bar autodialed or prerecorded calls and texts to cell phones without the owner’s prior consent, and sales calls before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. at the owner’s location. Some states set narrower hours or add rules of their own. Mail needs no trace at all: the mailing address from the county record already reaches the owner.
What you come away with Contacts made inside the rules, and a record of which numbers work.
What a match does not prove
Skip tracing services sell on their match rate. DealMachine’s pages claim a 95%+ match rate, for example. A match means the service found a record for the name and address you gave it, nothing more. It does not mean the record belongs to the owner, or that any number on it still works.
The records also age. People change numbers, and a database knows what its sources last reported. That is why stale numbers are a common complaint about these tools, including BatchLeads, whose most repeated complaint in the reviews we read is the accuracy of the contact data it includes with each lead.
Two habits protect you. Confirm the person before you trust a number, on age, relatives and past addresses. And mark dead numbers as dead, so nobody on your team calls them twice.
What a trace costs in the tools
Some tools charge for each trace, some include a monthly allowance with the plan. Prices from each pricing page, September 2026.
| Tool | Skip tracing | How it is billed | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
 Propwire |
10¢ per successful match | Free to search. A trace that finds nothing costs nothing | Try Propwire free |
 PropertyRadar |
250 included, then 8¢ | On the $119 plan | See PropertyRadar pricing |
 PropStream |
12¢ a contact | On the $99 plan. Its $30 Connect add-on covers up to 25,000 traces a month | See PropStream pricing |
 BatchLeads |
Included | With each lead, 10,000 leads a month on the $119 plan, then 4¢ a lead | See BatchLeads pricing |
 DealMachine |
Included | One data credit a trace, 10,000 credits in each $99 seat | See DealMachine pricing |
 REsimpli |
10,000 credits a month | On the $299 Solo plan. Past that, its pricing page says 15¢ a record and its Terms say tracing stops | See REsimpli pricing |
Which one gives the smaller bill depends on how many owners you trace in a month and what else you need the tool to do. The comparisons price that out at real volumes.
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Skip tracing: questions people ask
What does skip tracing mean in real estate?
Finding the phone number or email of a property owner you cannot reach through the property itself. The name comes from debt collection, where a “skip” is someone who has moved on without a forwarding address. In real estate it is used to reach owners who might sell.
Is skip tracing legal?
Yes. Looking up an owner’s contact details in public records and people-search data is legal. The rules apply to what you do next: Do Not Call scrubbing, consent for autodialed or prerecorded calls and texts to cell phones, and calling hours. The federal law sets damages per call, $500 each and up to $1,500 if the violation is willful.
Can I use skip tracing data to screen tenants?
No. People-search sites say in their terms that they are not consumer reporting agencies, so their data cannot be used to decide on tenants, jobs, credit or insurance. Tenant screening goes through a consumer reporting agency under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
What is the difference between skip tracing and a people search?
The data is much the same. A people search is one name at a time on a website. Skip tracing in a tool runs a whole list against a database at once and attaches the results to each property.
Do I need skip tracing for direct mail?
No. The county record already gives the mailing address the tax bill goes to, and that reaches the owner. Tracing is for calling, texting and email.
What is a skip tracing hit rate?
The share of records a service finds a match for. It says nothing about whether the numbers still work, and none of the tools we cover publishes a tested figure for that.
Who else uses skip tracing?
Debt collectors, process servers, bail bond agents and private investigators use the same kind of search to find people who have moved. In real estate, investors use it to reach property owners about selling.
How much does skip tracing cost?
Pay-as-you-go services charge 10¢ to 20¢ an owner, read in September 2026, and some data tools include tracing in the plan: DealMachine’s $99 seat covers 10,000 traces. The skip tracing cost guide compares them.
How we put this together
| Line | Source | What we read |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Rules | The Federal Trade Commission’s National Do Not Call Registry pages for businesses |
| 02 | Rules | The federal rules on autodialed and prerecorded calls, texts to cell phones and calling hours |
| 03 | Terms | The terms of free people-search sites on the Fair Credit Reporting Act |
| 04 | Pricing | The pricing pages of every tool in the table, read September 2026 |
What we did not do. We have not run traces through these tools, so nothing here measures how often their numbers reach the owner. Calling rules differ by state, and nothing here is legal advice.