Short answer: Genuinely free skip tracing exists, but it is manual county records work, not a free version of a paid tool. Expect a low hit rate and a real time cost. What you save in fees you pay in hours.
- Free means public records: assessor, recorder, court, obituary and voter files. Not credit header data.
- Paid tools cost cents per record. At any volume, free is usually the more expensive option once your time is priced.
- Hit rate is the metric, not price per record. A cheap list with bad numbers costs more than a good one.
- Finding the number is legal. Calling it is where the exposure is.
Everyone starts by looking for free skip tracing, and the honest answer is that free and paid are not the same activity. Free skip tracing is you doing records research. Paid skip tracing is buying access to aggregated data you cannot lawfully assemble yourself.
Contents
What free skip tracing can actually find
These sources genuinely cost nothing and are worth knowing, because even people who pay for data fall back on them for the hard cases.
- County assessor records. Owner of record and the tax mailing address. When the mailing address differs from the property address, you have already learned something important.
- County recorder or clerk. Deeds, mortgages, liens and releases. A recent deed tells you who actually owns it now, not who owned it when the list was built.
- Probate and court dockets. Where an owner has died, the personal representative and their attorney are frequently named, and attorneys answer their phones.
- Obituaries. Surviving relatives are usually named, which is how most heir situations get solved.
- Secretary of state business filings. If the owner is an LLC, the registered agent and often a manager address are public.
- Voter registration, where your state makes it publicly accessible.
The single highest value free move is checking whether the tax mailing address differs from the property address. That one field separates absentee owners from occupants and is free in every county in the country.
Why free hit rates are low
Public records tell you who owns the property and where the tax bill goes. They do not contain current cell phone numbers, because that data comes from credit headers, telecom records and commercial aggregators that are not public.
So free skip tracing solves ownership and mailing address well, and phone numbers poorly. If your outreach is direct mail, free research covers most of what you need. If your outreach is the phone, it does not.
The arithmetic nobody runs
Roughly 3 to 5 minutes each across several sites 50 to 80 hours
1,000 records, paid
Cents per record, returned in minutes plus your time reviewing
The real question
What is an hour of your time worth, and what else could it be doing
Free makes sense for a handful of high value targets where you want depth on each one. It stops making sense the moment you are working a list.
Free trials and free tiers, and what they are for
Many paid providers offer a free trial or a small monthly allowance. These are genuinely useful for one specific purpose: testing hit rate on your list, in your market, before you commit.
Run the same fifty records through two or three providers and compare. Providers differ far more by region and property type than their marketing suggests, and the winner on your list may not be the biggest name.
What this data legally is, and is not
Skip tracing data sold to investors is almost always non-FCRA data. That is not a loophole, it is a category.
| Law | What it restricts | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| FCRA | Use of consumer report data for credit, insurance, employment and tenant screening decisions | You may not use investor skip trace data to screen a tenant or a buyer’s creditworthiness. Different product, different permissible purpose. |
| DPPA | Use of state motor vehicle record data | DMV sourced data has a restricted list of permitted uses. Marketing to homeowners is generally not among them. |
| GLBA | Non public personal financial information | Constrains what financial data a provider can resell and for what purpose. |
| TCPA | Calls and texts to the numbers you just found | The live risk. See the section above. |
Reputable providers make you accept a permissible use agreement before they release data. If a provider does not ask, that is a signal about the provider rather than a convenience.
The number is the easy part. Calling it is the risk.
Skip tracing gets you a phone number. What you are allowed to do with it is a separate question, and it got harder in 2026.
In Coffey v. Fast Easy Offer (Ninth Circuit, 4 June 2026) the court revived TCPA claims over “we buy houses” calls and texts. The district court had thrown the case out on the theory that offering to buy a house is not a solicitation to sell anything. The Ninth Circuit disagreed, holding that the sender’s purpose matters, and that where unconverted leads are handed to a brokerage under a revenue share, the communication can be a telephone solicitation after all.
The practical consequence for wholesalers is direct. The old comfort that buy side outreach sits outside the TCPA is no longer safe in the Ninth Circuit, and the reasoning is available to plaintiffs elsewhere. If you skip trace a list and then blast it, you are relying on a defence that has just been narrowed.
- Skip traced numbers are overwhelmingly cell phones. That is the point of skip tracing, and it is also what raises the exposure.
- The National Do Not Call Registry still applies to telephone solicitations. Scrub against it rather than assuming your data provider did.
- What you do with dead leads matters. Coffey turned partly on referring unconverted sellers to a brokerage for a share of revenue. If your business does that, read the opinion with counsel.
- Consent is the safe path. Direct mail first, inbound response second, phone contact after that. Slower, and far more defensible.
Frequently asked questions
Is there genuinely free skip tracing?
Yes, if you mean researching public records yourself: assessor, recorder, court, probate, obituary and business filings. There is no free equivalent of a paid provider’s aggregated phone data, because that data is not public.
What is a good skip tracing hit rate?
It depends heavily on list type and market, and providers define a hit differently. What matters is the rate of numbers that reach the right person, which is always lower than the advertised match rate. Test on your own list rather than trusting a headline figure.
Can I use skip tracing to screen a tenant?
No. Investor skip trace data is non-FCRA data, and tenant screening is an FCRA regulated purpose. You need a proper consumer reporting product with the required disclosures and consent.
Is skip tracing legal?
Locating a property owner from lawful data sources is generally legal. The regulated parts are which data you use and for what purpose under FCRA, DPPA and GLBA, and what you do with the phone number under the TCPA and Do Not Call rules.
Can I text a number I skip traced?
Treat that as high risk. After Coffey v. Fast Easy Offer in June 2026, the argument that buy side outreach falls outside the TCPA is considerably weaker in the Ninth Circuit. Get advice before running any texting campaign to skip traced cell numbers.
What is the cheapest way to start?
Pull your county’s absentee owner data free, mail those owners, and skip trace only the ones who respond. That inverts the usual order and puts your money on people who have already raised a hand.
A list is not a lead
Most people burn money skip tracing lists they were never going to work properly. Inside the free group we go through which lists actually convert, how to reach owners without stepping on the TCPA, and what to say when they answer. 1,100 wholesalers already in there. No cash, no credit, no license needed.
Join the free groupSources
Coffey v. Fast Easy Offer, LLC, No. 25-4066 (9th Cir. 4 June 2026)
Telephone Consumer Protection Act and National Do Not Call Registry rules
Fair Credit Reporting Act permissible purpose provisions
Driver’s Privacy Protection Act and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
County assessor, recorder and probate record practice
This article explains common practice and is not legal advice. Contract law, disclosure duties and wholesaler licensing rules vary by state and change often. Have a real estate attorney licensed in your state review any agreement before you sign or use it.