Going into 2023, real estate investors looking for online platforms to help them acquire leads need to choose between BatchLeads vs PropStream.
While finding the perfect real estate property is crucial for your investment, investors often neglect the process of gathering data about the owners of the properties they want to buy.
Table of Contents
- What Is Skip Tracing?
- BatchLeads vs PropStream Compared
- Final Verdict: BatchLeads vs PropStream
A mistake that many beginner investors make is that they get too excited upon finding the perfect property that they forget to consider the owner’s willingness to sell.
Other, investors may find a great property that they fail to close because the info they had about the owner turned out to be outdated. By the time they find out who the owner is, another buyer will have already made a deal to buy the property.
For this reason, it is very important for beginner investors to use all the tools available to them when it comes to gathering leads and potential sellers.
And when it comes to the best of these tools, investors will find themselves facing the option between BatchLeads vs PropStream.
In this article, we will talk about what skip tracing is and how important it is in real estate investing, and we will compare BatchLeads’s and PropStream’s platforms and tools to see which one you should be using.
What Is Skip Tracing?
Before talking about BatchLeads vs PropStream, it is important to talk about skip tracing.
Skip tracing is a method that is used in today’s real estate market to gather data and gain useful insights about the owners of properties that you want to buy. The method revolves around collecting data from several public sources and records to provide the most up-to-date information about the owner of a property.
It includes finding out who the owner bought the property from, their contact info, their current address, and other kinds of information that can help investors prepare a deal to buy the property.
While it is less commonly used by sellers, skip tracing can also be used by property owners to find buyers who might be interested in purchasing their property.
Why Is Skip Tracing Important in Real Estate Investing?
When you want to purchase a real estate property, you naturally use any data available to you to analyze the market and help you find suitable properties quickly.
Similarly, since you can’t buy a property without the owner’s permission, it is equally important to be able to get in touch with the owner using the correct contact info to make a deal.
But that’s not the only use of skip tracing in real estate.
When looking at BatchLeads vs PropStream, for example, we’ll notice that they both rely heavily on skip-tracing data to help buyers even find properties.
By looking at the public records of property owners, it is possible to find potential sellers who haven’t listed their properties for sale on the MLS.
And it is perhaps the most important use of skip tracing in today’s market: the ability to find off-market properties like pre-foreclosures by looking at the owners’ public records.
How Do I Skip Trace?
While it is possible to skip trace on your own, the process is so daunting and time-consuming that it is almost never worth it. Instead, most real estate investors will typically use a skip-tracing service or an online platform like BatchLeads.
Additionally, to be able to use skip tracing to produce market insights that can help you find properties to buy, you will need a massive amount of data to analyze. The process is similar to conducting a rental property analysis.
Luckily, online real estate platforms like BatchLeads, PropStream, or Mashvisor all rely on machine-learning algorithms to turn data into insights and analytics.
BatchLeads, for example, gathers data from several private and public sources before running that data through an algorithm to provide insights.
Of course, as you would expect, the quality and accuracy of the data and the insights can vary significantly, as we will see when comparing BatchLeads vs PropStream next.
Related: Are There Free Skip Tracing Tools for Real Estate?
BatchLeads vs PropStream Compared
When you’re looking for the best online platform to use, it’s important to know what the two best options are and the difference in the tools or features that they provide.
So, in order to decide between BatchLeads vs PropStream, the best way is to compare the two in terms of their strengths and weaknesses before making a final judgment.
Of course, it doesn’t mean that you can’t use both if you want. In fact, many beginner investors recommend using both to get the best results and take advantage of the unique features that each of them offers.
Although, if you’re trying to save money, we will also be comparing them in terms of pricing plans and whether or not they offer a free trial.
Without further ado, let’s start with BatchLeads.
What Is BatchLeads?
BatchLeads is a real estate investment platform that can be used online through a website or a mobile app. The platform specializes in skip tracing, with its biggest focus being on the accuracy and completeness of its skip tracing database.
By only using the most accurate and up-to-date records from verified sources, BatchLeads helps investors find property owners who are motivated or are likely to sell.
It is done with the use of filters that can narrow down your search based on the following:
- Pre-foreclosures (early-stage foreclosures)
- Properties purchased by cash buyers
- Property owners who are behind on mortgage payments
- Lots with outstanding liens
- Probate sale homes
- Properties that are vacant with absentee owners
BatchLeads also uses a GPS-aided map tool that lets you see properties that you can purchase in the market that you’re interested in.
Why Use BatchLeads?
The biggest advantage of using BatchLeads is the accuracy of its data.
Many users of BatchLeads report high accuracy levels that don’t go below 75%, making it very reliable for gathering a big leads database.
However, BatchLeads also provides a lot of value in some of its other features, including:
- The ability to build a database of local investors that you can contract with available wholesale properties
- Built-in features that let you reach out to your leads list and potential buyers via SMS and track each conversation separately
- The ability to maintain thousands of leads and keep them active while you wait for property owners to consider their options
As a buyer, the data that you get from BatchLeads can help you identify property owners who might be motivated to sell.
For example, it can show you property owners who might be willing to walk away from an old building that they own because they can’t afford to repair and maintain it.
To an investor, it can present an opportunity to buy the property and turn it before it gets listed on the market for sale. Therefore, it allows you to avoid competing with offers from other potential buyers.
BatchLeads Pricing
When it comes to BatchLeads’ pricing, they are generally considered high. Currently, here are the prices listed on its website for its monthly plans:
- Personal Basic: $99/mo.
- Personal Plus: $299/mo.
- Team Basic: $599/mo.
- Team Plus: $899/mo.
The difference between the Personal and Team plans is the number of workspaces that are available to you, with the former offering a single workspace while the latter offering five to ten workspaces.
In terms of the features that they offer, almost all features are available to all plans.
The Personal Basic plan doesn’t provide access to lead scoring, mortgage rate and type filters, or SMS campaigns, among other features. It makes the Basic plan the least desirable as it doesn’t include the best and most sought-out features that BatchLeads offers.
The flexibility in their pricing, however, comes in the form of their skip tracing and messaging costs. With skip tracing costs, in particular, the cost per skip trace goes down when you upgrade your plan.
So, while it costs $0.14 per lead with the Personal Basic plan, the cost goes down to $0.12 if you upgrade to Personal Plus, and it goes down further to $0.10 if you upgrade to a Team plan.
Finally, BatchLeads does not offer a free trial of the platform.
It means that the cheapest option available for trying out the platform’s skip-tracing capabilities and data is the Personal Plus.
What Is PropStream?
PropStream is an online real estate platform that, like Mashvisor, specializes in helping investors find properties based on estimated property values and rental rates. However, unlike Mashvisor, and similar to BatchLeads, the platform focuses on off-market properties.
Comparing BatchLeads vs PropStream is necessary because the two platforms are very similar in terms of their functionality and use, with a few differences that we will mention later.
Overall, the main tool that PropStream offers is a map tool to help investors find properties using filters such as:
- General property details (number of rooms and square footage)
- MLS details, when available
- Owner details and contact info
- Foreclosure details
- Tax details
- Mortgage details
- Other types of documentation that are publicly available
Since it focuses on off-market properties, PropStream can be used similarly to BatchLeads to find investment opportunities that other investors aren’t aware of or that with very little competition.
Related: How to Find Off Market Properties in 2022: The Complete Guide
Why Use PropStream?
When you’re choosing between BatchLeads vs PropStream, what advantages does PropStream offer?
We saw that BatchLeads come with an advantage due to their focus on high-quality and up-to-date data.
PropStream, on the other hand, will include lower tiers of accuracy as well. While it reflects on the accuracy and reliability of the data in general, it also allows PropStream to provide much larger lists of leads compared to BatchLeads.
Other differences in the features that they offer include the ability to reach out to your leads via email and postcards as opposed to BatchLeads, which does it via SMS.
The email campaigns tool in PropStream is simplistic yet effective when it comes to advertising yourself to large numbers of leads, which is what the platform offers.
Finally, compared to BatchLeads, PropStream provides more flexibility with the filters, and it is the only platform that lets users add additional filters for a price.
This brings us to the next point, which is the pricing plans of PropStream.
PropStream Pricing
Compared to BatchLeads, PropStream’s pricing structure is much more flexible and unique compared to most other platforms.
Instead of multiple tiers of subscription, PropStream offers only one basic subscription. But you can build upon your subscription by adding the specific features that you want.
So, you can subscribe to PropStream for the monthly price of $99/mo. But if you want to add more features, you need to pay the following prices in addition to the monthly subscription:
- List Automator tool: $27/mo.
- Additional team members: $20/mo. (per additional team member, up to five additional team members)
- Professional postcards: $0.40/postcard
- Skip tracing: $0.12/skip trace
- Emails: $0.02/email
As you can see, it allows for a lot of flexibility since you won’t be paying for a package that includes features you don’t need.
Additionally, just like Mashvisor, PropStream offers a 7-day free trial.
Related: PropStream Pricing: What Features Are You Getting & for How Much?
Final Verdict: BatchLeads vs PropStream
Now that we’ve looked at both BatchLeads and PropStream in terms of their features and what kind of advantages they offer, it’s time to compare the two and decide which one is better.
The answer to the question depends on your specific situation and what you want to gain from the tool you’re paying for.
Of course, as we mentioned earlier in this article, many investors would recommend using both tools to get the best results. And it is true if you can afford both tools without affecting your investment.
Since both tools work in a very similar way, you can often use them and compare the data that you’re getting from them to notice any major discrepancies.
Of course, if you want to make it even better, you can include Mashvisor to get even more information and analytics about the properties that you’re interested in buying, such as:
- Their estimated rental rates
- The average cap rates and cash on cash return rates of a market
- Average occupancy rates of different markets
- Number of long-term and short-term rentals in a market
- The cap rate and cash on cash return rate of specific properties
- Cap rate calculator and cash on cash return calculator
Want to give Mashvisor a try? Start your 7-day free trial now.
Mashvisor provides investors with even more information and analytics about the properties that they’re interested in purchase,
But in terms of BatchLeads vs PropStream, if you could only choose one, we can compare the two in different categories.
BatchLeads vs PropStream: Pricing
Naturally, comparing the prices of both tools based on the value you’re getting out of it is key.
When we look at BatchLeads’s pricing, it is easy to see that it is much more expensive than PropStream.
While both platforms offer a basic subscription at the same price, you can get a lot more from PropStream’s basic plan than with BatchLeads.
It is because BatchLeads’s basic subscription doesn’t offer the most important features that you’re looking for to carry out skip tracing. Instead, you will need to pay for the much more costly Personal Plus plan in addition to paying per skip trace.
Additionally, PropStream’s platform offers a 7-day free trial to let you try the tool before committing to the price, while BatchLeads doesn’t.
BatchLeads vs PropStream: Data
When it comes to the quality and accuracy of the data that you’re getting from PropStream vs BatchLeads, the latter takes the cake.
BatchLeads is well known for its quality over quantity data, and the accuracy of its results clearly shows it. Although it means you’re getting a far smaller amount of data, you won’t be wasting your time on inaccurate data or on trying to reach the wrong contacts.
While some investors might prefer PropStream’s approach of providing massive lists of leads, most beginner investors can’t waste their resources and time trying to reach out to large numbers of unreliable leads.
It is why, although it comes at a higher price, we think BatchLeads is much more superior when it comes to data.
BatchLeads vs PropStream: Communications
Lastly, when comparing both tools, it’s important to look at the options and capabilities that they provide to reach out to potential buyers and leads about their properties.
Both platforms allow users to reach out to buyers, but they do it in different ways.
While BatchLeads uses SMS, PropStream chose to focus on postcards and email communications as their preferred methods. It is hard to decide on the better method, as each has its own strengths and weaknesses.
While SMS allows for higher engagement, especially when dealing with high quality leads, it does cost considerably more than email. On the other hand, sending email campaigns to a large audience is extremely difficult to do without using a third-party platform and without getting marked as spam.
So, by offering the option to send out email campaigns, PropStream is saving you the trouble of having to find a separate platform just for that.
If you can afford to use both platforms, we think using both SMS and email campaigns offer the best results when done correctly.
Bottom Line: Which Tool Should You Use?
If you want to invest in real estate and you prefer off-market properties, using an online tool like BatchLeads or PropStream can be very beneficial for you. The platforms allow you to find off-market properties that other investors aren’t aware of, and to buy such properties and turn them into a profit based on data and analytics.
But choosing between BatchLeads vs PropStream is an important decision that you need to make.
While both tools offer similar features, there are a few differences that can make one tool better than the other, depending on your case. Llooking at the features that each tool offers and the price you pay for them can help you decide.
But if you don’t care about the price and you just want to get the best results to make an informed and profitable investment, our recommendation is to use both.
Additionally, we highly recommend using Mashvisor if you want to find the most lucrative long term and short term rental properties in the market using rental comps. The platform offers a 7-day free trial that you can use to test the tools and see how they can help you find the best investment property.
Click here to schedule a demo of Mashvisor today and find out more about how it can help you in your real estate investing journey.
