How Real Estate Agents Can Use Public Records to Find Motivated Sellers

Real estate agents can use public records strategically to identify motivated sellers. Motivated sellers include property owners who are more likely to sell quickly, often at below-market prices. These are some of the best leads for real estate agents. 

So what’s the best way to find these kinds of sellers? You don’t have to just play seller-roulette—you can make your own luck. Keep reading to find out how real estate agents can use public records to find motivated sellers. Real estate agents can also gain an edge by focusing on selling your home with local Southampton estate agents, who understand the area’s market trends and can quickly spot motivated sellers through public records.

The Right Types of Public Records for Real Estate Agents to Search

There are specific searches you can conduct as a real estate agent to have the best chances of finding motivated sellers. Here are some examples:

Pre-Foreclosure and Foreclosure Notices

Pre-foreclosures and foreclosure notices can be found with the county clerk, recorder’s office, or court system. Keywords you should look for are notices of default (NOD), lis pendens, and trustee sale notice.

A lis pendens, Latin for “suit pending,” is a public notice filed in real estate records that warns potential buyers or lenders that a property is involved in a pending lawsuit that could affect its ownership or title. Typically, this title makes it difficult to sell or transfer the property until the lawsuit is resolved, so sellers are typically motivated to sell as soon as they have an opportunity.

Owners in these situations, in financial distress, may be eager to sell before losing the home. So, they won’t waste time waiting for the “right” buyer. A quicker sale means a quicker payday for real estate agents and the quicker they can move on to the next client and property.

Delinquent Property Taxes

Properties with unpaid taxes can indicate financial distress as well. Tax-delinquent owners may be struggling financially and open to a quick sale. These kinds of properties can be found in the county tax assessor’s or treasurer’s office.

Divorce Records

Divorce filings that involve property division can also be prime opportunities for quick sales. By checking family or county court records, you can find divorcing couples that need to sell shared property to divide assets.

Probate and Estate Records

Probate court records can provide lists of estates with real property assets. Heirs may not want to maintain or manage inherited properties, so they may be ready to sell as quickly as possible.

Eviction Records

Local court or sheriff’s department records will show landlords who frequently evict tenants. This report can indicate tired landlords who may be looking to cash out and leave the rental business. 

Code Violations

City or county code enforcement databases can show properties cited for safety, structural, or maintenance issues. These properties might indicate owners who lack the funds to fix these problems and may therefore be motivated to sell.

Vacancy and Utility Shut-Offs

Utility departments or USPS vacant address data can indicate long-term vacancies or properties with cut utilities. Vacant homes are often liabilities, so owners may be eager to unload them. 

Expired Listings (MLS)

While expired listings, or multiple listing service (MLS), access is not public access, it is often used with public data. These listings failed to sell and are, therefore—for lack of a better term—desperate. Sellers of expired listings may be open to a new strategy or lower price.

Outreach Ideas for Real Estate Agents

Real estate agents can utilize the same outreach strategies as any sales organization: direct mail, cold calling, and door knocking.

Send targeted postcards or letters to property owners you identify. If contact information is available, call or email with a value-first message. And in local markets, door knocking can be effective especially when there’s visible distress.

But how do you get access to postal, phone, and email contact information? Keep reading for tools and techniques you can use to get in touch with motivated sellers in your area.

Tools and Techniques to Help Real Estate Agents Find Motivated Sellers

Now you know what kinds of properties owners are eager to sell as soon as possible and where to find them. But there are also some tools that can help you get in contact with the owners.

There are plenty of great ways to find motivated sellers using free or low-cost public record and data sources. County tax assessor sites, for example, show you which properties are behind on taxes. Probate records can reveal estates likely to sell inherited property. Code violation lists highlight distressed homes the owner may be eager to unload.

However, while driving for dollars can help you spot vacant or neglected properties firsthand, most of these methods stop short of giving you the one thing you really need: direct access to the owner. Searchbug, on the other hand, makes raw leads reachable. 

Once you’ve gathered a list of properties, plug those addresses or names into Searchbug’s reverse lookup skip tracing tool. In seconds, you can find current and previous phone numbers, email addresses, property owner details (even for LLCs or trusts), and mailing addresses, including forwarding information.

Searchbug is the difference between knowing who owns a property and actually being able to connect with them.

Say you pull a list of 15 tax-delinquent properties from your county website. Great. Now what? Instead of sending blind mailers and hoping for a response, you can run each address through Searchbug’s reverse lookup to get a name, address, and phone number for the address owner. Now you might have 9 working phone numbers and 6 emails ready for your next round of outreach which you can personalize with accurate names!

Conclusion

If you’ve ever dug through county foreclosure notices, tax delinquency lists, or probate filings, you know one thing: these records are rich in potential but often poor in contact details. You might find a name or an outdated mailing address, but without a phone number or email, you’re stuck.

That’s where Searchbug comes in. Our Property Records Search can provide you with specific property details including the owner’s name. Then, you can search that name using a reverse lookup to get a current address, all known phone numbers with line type (wireless or landline), and/or email address if available. 

Pro tip? Focus on combinations of distress signals, like a property that’s both tax-delinquent and vacant. Then, use Searchbug’s reverse lookup to get the information necessary to contact the owner of that location and potentially sell that property. You know what to do—Searchbug can help. 

Have an entire list of addresses? Don’t search each property individually—upload the list to Searchbug’s batch append tool to get the associated personal contact information for your property records. Try it today!