What is Skip Tracing?
Skip tracing is the process of finding a property owner's current phone numbers, email addresses, and alternate addresses — typically by querying a third-party data service that aggregates public records, credit headers, and proprietary databases.
Most absentee-owner lists give you the property and a mailing address — useful for direct mail but useless for calls or text. Skip-trace services convert each record into 1-3 phone numbers (a mix of landline, mobile, and "do not call" flags), often plus email addresses and known relatives.
Quality varies enormously between providers. The cheap services ($0.05-0.15/record) produce phone numbers that are 30-50% accurate; the premium services ($0.30-0.80/record) hit 60-80% accuracy on the primary number. The economics depend on call-through rate — paying $0.50 to reach the owner is cheaper than paying $0.05 to NOT reach the owner.
Top providers in 2026: BatchSkip, REI Skip, Skip Genie, PropStream's integrated skip-trace. Most wholesalers use one premium and one budget provider, comparing results on a sample before committing to either.
Concepts that connect.
Sourcing is the discipline of generating motivated-seller leads — direct mail, cold calling, driving for dollars, pre-foreclosure lists, probate filings. Every wholesale and BRRRR business is fundamentally a sourcing operation; the rest is execution.
Cold calling is the practice of phoning property owners (typically pulled from an absentee or distress list, with phone numbers from skip trace) to generate seller leads. Used either as a primary channel or as a follow-up layer on direct-mail campaigns.
An absentee owner is a property owner whose mailing address does not match the property address — typically an out-of-state landlord, an inheritor who never moved in, or a vacation-home owner. Absentee-owner lists are the bread-and-butter lead source for residential wholesalers.
The Weekly Deal Memo
One market memo, one off-market playbook, one tool review. Every Friday. Free.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.