How to find a property owner's phone number.
Here is how to find a property owner's phone number: get the owner's name from the county, check where the tax bill goes, then skip trace the person.
Start with the owner's name, not the house
A phone number belongs to a person, not to a house. So the first job is to find out who owns the property. Once you have a name and a good address, finding the number is a normal lookup.
The good news is that property ownership is public record. You can get the name for free, from home.
Step 1: Search the county record
Most counties have a free property search on the assessor, property appraiser or tax collector website. You can usually search by:
- Address. The easiest way in.
- Parcel number (also called the APN). Handy when the address is odd.
- Map. Many counties let you click the lot on a map.
The record shows the owner's name, the tax mailing address, and often the sale date and price. Write all of it down.
Step 2: Read the mailing address
The mailing address is where the tax bill goes. If it is the same as the property address, the owner probably lives there. If it is different, you have an absentee owner: a landlord, an heir, or someone who moved away.
For a skip trace, the mailing address is often the better one to use, because it is where the owner actually gets mail. The absentee owners guide covers this in detail.
Step 3: When the owner is an LLC or a trust
If the record says "Smith Family Trust" or "123 Main LLC", there is no person to trace yet. For an LLC, look it up on the secretary of state business search and read the annual report for a member or manager name. For a trust, the trustee's name is often on the deed.
The LLC guide walks through this step by step.
Step 4: Skip trace the owner
Now you have a real name and a real address. A skip trace takes those two things and looks up the phone numbers tied to that person.
Doing this by hand works for one house. Wholesalers work lists of hundreds of thousands of owners, so they upload the whole list to a skip tracing tool instead. In Tracepoint, a new account gets 5,000 lookups free, one time, no card. The numbers land in a CRM you can call and text from.
Step 5: Check before you call
Before you dial, check each number against your do-not-call list. Texting has its own consent rules too. The DNC scrubbing guide explains how to scrub a list.
Not legal advice. Calling and texting rules vary by state. Talk to a lawyer about your situation.
Free ways and paid ways
Free ways to find a property owner's phone number:
- The county record, for the name and mailing address.
- A web search on the owner's name plus their city.
- A letter to the mailing address asking them to call you.
- Knocking on the door, if the owner lives there.
These are fine for a handful of houses. They do not work for a real list. That is where skip tracing tools come in. Most charge per record or by monthly plan; the skip tracing cost guide explains how they charge, and the free skip tracing tools round-up compares the free options.
For more, see how to skip trace a property and how to find motivated sellers.