How do I find owners of vacant property.

Get the addresses and go to the treasure at county court house, ask others in the same area if they can tell you who owns those homes, tax assessor, maybe a post office although there limited to what they can tell you.Hope that is some help!

If you have a good title person, they could do a little leg work and find out for you.
They could be REO's. If that is the case, you will have to wait until they come on the market. Often times REO's will sit vacant for 6-12 months, as the bank goes through their processing of the property, before the house comes on the market.
Good luck,
Jim

The best way is to look at the county records. These will be on line. Usually try the assessors office. You should find an address and a name. If the address is the same as the house you may need to start finding them by the name. Call directory assistance. Hope this helps.

Well, the way I go about it is I go to the tax assessors office online and look up the property. "Property Tax Search" is the best area to look in. Although you don't get the phone number, you should be able to see the tax bill that has the owner's name on it. Then you need to find the phone number. i use Spokeo.com to do this step. It's fairly reasonable for a membership, $23.70 for 6 months. When you go on the site, click on name and put in the owner's name and city, state and a list should come up. Then click on the "personal information" right under the general contact info. Will be located in the 1st box. You should be able to get all the info you need. I hope you are able to get all the info you need.

After checking the tax records, which will tell you who is currently paying or not paying taxes on the property, you can use sites like www.411.com to come up with a phone number for the person, too. Other white pages sites or your phone book might also give you a name and number.

Since I have limited Title Company access, all I have to do is go to Chicago title with my own user name and password and find out the info. Most Title officers will grant you access if you close several deals with their office or plan to do so. Its sort of a "scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" way of doing business.

1) Call Information. It's so obvious it's often overlooked. There's no need to jump through all the hoops when the operator may have their info right at her fingertips. Calling information is always my first stop.

(2) Visit the neighbors. The fastest way to find the owners is nearly always from a neighbor. I just knock and ask if they know anything about the vacant house next door. Often, the property has become a bit of an eyesore, and when a neighbor hears I'm interested in fixing that, they tell everything they know.

Listen carefully, because even though they may not know where the owners are now, they may know someone who does, or they may know where they worked or who they hung out with.

(3) Go To The Assessor's Office. I like to head back to the assessor's office to see where they've been sending the tax statements. I also want to see if they own any other property. If I find other addresses, I make a note of them.

(4) Visit The Recorder's Office. Back at the recorder's office, I pull up every document they've signed in the last few years and look for any other addresses. It might be on a deed or a mortgage or on something else, but I won't know that until I look.

If I find a VA loan, I'm guessing they got transferred. You may know that there are "locator" offices with each branch of the military and for a nominal fee, if you provide them with a name and social security number, they'll give you the owner's current location. If they're military, I put the locator to work for me.

(5) Look For Marriage License Applications. At the recorder's office they also file marriage license applications. When I see one, I glean whatever information from it I can. Ours include addresses, birth dates, social security info and, often, employment.

I gather that information on both the groom and the bride. The bride information is particularly important because with a unique maiden name or with a previous address, I can often find a family member who knows where they are now.

(6) Check Voter Records. Also at the recorder's office in my county is the "elections" department where voter records are kept. Yes, that info is public record and available for the asking. Just plug in a name and the computer spits out whatever they've got on them. Often, it's their current address.

(7) Search Courthouse Records. Next, I'm off to the courthouse. I pull everything I can find on the computer and look those files over for any leads they might contain. If they've been sued and garnished, I've got an employer.

If they've recently divorced, I've got more info than I want to know. Whatever cases are down there, I just pull the files and jump on in, looking for any piece of information that might lead me to their present whereabouts. On the same computer, I can pull up all the Probate information. It's always a good idea to check. Ditto for the Criminal courts (you have lived until you've made offers to guys in prison).

( Look For Motor Vehicle Records. Driver records in my state are confidential. No access, and that's probably a good thing. But, if you know what to ask for and where to get it, you can get motor vehicle records.

It's a little antiquated and you have to use the microfiche, but with a name, you get a list of every vehicle they own. Type those plate numbers into their computer and you get the state's most current address on them.

(9) Use CD ROM Phone Books. Those phone books on CD ROM are pretty good, but only if the owner has left town months and months (if not years) ago. I use them more to locate people with identical last names or earlier addresses.

(10) Hire A Skip Tracer. There are professional skip tracers who will, for a fifty dollar bill, run a couple national computer searches. When all else fails, I fax them a name and last known address and within twenty four hours, I know if they get a hit or not. They don't always get them, but definitely worth a shot.

Of course, this is how things work in my area with the various public records offices. Your situation and access will be different. Generally, the ideas are the same, you'll just have different ways to get at the info.

I know, it sometimes looks overwhelming. Really, there isn't much to it. I just gather the information and follow up with it as best I can. If I get a telephone number, I give them a call. With addresses, I send letters left and right (including to the property address) and hope to hit a current address or, at the very least, get back a forwarding order.

Do the same and you'll likely find whoever it is you're looking for. Still not convinced? Believe it...that's how I first tracked down the girl I later married (BWD 850 - blue Chevy Monza). But be careful here, I think they call it "stalking" nowadays! jkaiser

Good stuff in this I am bookmarking this, how do you get the county assesor websites easily though to see the tax websites? I seem to have trouble with that.

I just contact the respective assessors office's for that information Tony. It saves a lot of time on the interment searching. They just tell me where I can assess it.

Keeping it simple in real estate investing is the best way to go! ha ha

real property records www.netronline.com pick your state, then your county or the county you are interested in and go from there. if it works for my little city of 16000 it ought to work for anywhere. tax assessors and tax collectors records.