Skip Tracing & List Building Mastery

You found a property. The county records tell you who owns it. But you don't have their phone number, and the mailing address on file might be ten years old. Skip tracing gets you current contact information so you can actually reach the owner.

The term comes from debt collection, where they'd track down people who "skipped town." In real estate, you're not chasing anyone. You're looking up phone numbers, email addresses, and current mailing addresses for property owners who might want to sell.

Free methods exist. TruePeopleSearch and FastPeopleSearch pull from public records and return results maybe half the time. That works if you're looking up one or two properties. It falls apart when you have a list of 500 and need to start calling this week.

Paid skip tracing services cross-reference credit bureau data, utility records, and commercial databases. The hit rates jump to 80-95%, and you get phone type identification so you know if you're calling a cell phone or a landline. You also get litigator flags, which tell you if the owner has a history of suing telemarketers. Calling one of those people without knowing can cost you thousands in TCPA fines.

FlipMantis has skip tracing built in. You don't export a list, upload it to a third-party service, wait for results, then import the data back. Build your list, hit skip trace, and the phone numbers populate right in your CRM. Ready to call.

A list of 10,000 random property owners is not a marketing strategy. It's a waste of dialer minutes. The goal is a tight list of 200-500 people who have a real reason to sell.

Open the FlipMantis List Builder and start with your geography. Draw on the map or enter ZIP codes for the neighborhoods you know, where you can accurately comp properties and where your buyers want to purchase. Going wide sounds productive but it just means you'll be guessing on values.

Now stack your filters. Absentee owners who live at a different address than the property. Long-term ownership over 10 years, which usually means high equity and deferred maintenance. Tax delinquent, meaning they're behind on property taxes. Pre-foreclosure, meaning they've received a Notice of Default. Code violations on file with the city.

Each filter you add shrinks the list and increases the motivation level of whoever's left. A property that's absentee-owned AND tax delinquent AND has been owned for 15 years is a much better call than a random absentee owner.

The list builder shows you the count as you toggle filters so you can see exactly how many records match your criteria. When you're in the 200-500 range with three or more indicators, that's a list worth skip tracing and calling. Save the search and you can run it again next month to catch new properties that match.

Your list is built. Time to get phone numbers.

Select your list inside FlipMantis and hit the skip trace button. The system sends your records through multiple data sources and cross-references the results. Within a few minutes, you'll see phone numbers, emails, and mailing addresses populate next to each record.

The results screen shows you a match rate for the batch. With FlipMantis multi-source tracing, you should see 90%+ of records returning at least one phone number. Each number is tagged by type: mobile, landline, or VoIP. Mobile numbers are your priority because you can call and text them. Landlines are call-only. VoIP numbers are often businesses.

The system also flags litigators and checks against the DNC registry. Records with a litigator flag get marked so you don't accidentally call someone who makes a living suing investors. DNC-flagged numbers get separated so you can reach those people through direct mail instead.

Batch processing saves money. Running 500 records at once costs significantly less per record than doing one-off lookups. Time it so you skip trace on Tuesday and start calling Wednesday. Fresh data converts better.

After the trace completes, your leads are sitting in the CRM with all their contact info attached. Click a name, see the property details, and start dialing. No spreadsheet gymnastics.

You've got 400 skip-traced leads. Calling them in random order means your best prospects get the same priority as your weakest ones. That's leaving money on the table.

The Mantis Score ranks every lead on a 0-100 scale by analyzing the property data, distress signals, and ownership patterns. It sorts your leads into three lanes: Hot (70+), Warm (40-69), and Cold (under 40). Start your calling sessions with the hot lane. These are the people most likely to pick up the phone and say yes.

The scoring factors include things you already filtered for, like tax delinquency and absentee status, plus deeper signals: how long the property has been vacant, the owner's age and likely equity position, recent life events like a death in the family or court filing, and whether the property has had any recent activity like a listing that expired.

Tag every lead after you speak with them. "Interested, needs two weeks." "Not interested, check back in six months." "Callback requested for Thursday." "Wrong number, remove." These dispositions keep your data clean and tell the automation what to do next.

Set up a simple cadence. Hot leads get called within 24 hours of skip tracing. Warm leads get enrolled in a 7-Day Strike sequence. Cold leads go into a monthly drip. Leads you've spoken to and tagged as "interested" get personal follow-up, not automation.

The lead list isn't static. Re-skip trace every 90 days because phone numbers change. Re-score monthly because new distress signals appear. A lead that scored 35 three months ago might be a 75 today if they just received a foreclosure notice.