Have you ever wondered who owns that dilapidated Victorian home two blocks away from your Property? Have you ever thought of acquiring it for a small price? Well, you’re not the only one. It’s not uncommon to want to know who owns a property, especially for a real estate investor looking to land the best real estate deals. Because of the fierce competition in today’s market, many investors go about looking for off market real estate opportunities. What they do is perform a property owner search in a well-performing housing market and create a list of all the potential sellers they find. Once they find out who the owner of a property is, they get in touch with them to let them know that they are interested in buying investment property in the neighborhood. If the homeowner is motivated to sell their own property, the real estate investor will then make an offer and finalize the deal.
But you might still be wondering: How to find out who owns a property? Actually, there are several ways. Here are the two most common ways of how to find out property by address:
- Property Tax Records: The first way is to look up local property tax records to find property owner address. Usually, each town or county has a tax assessment website that allows anyone to search for tax records and property information online, as long as you have the address of the property. But in many cases, you may have to visit the tax assessor’s office in person and search through paper records manually if no website exists for the county where the property is located. This also requires you to have the address of the property.
- Property Deeds: Another way to find out who owns a property is through a property deed search, using the Registry of Deeds. Searching the Registry of Deeds is in principle similar to the process of looking up tax records to find a property owner. If the county where the property is situated has a Registry of Deeds website, then you’ll need to enter the property’s address and select the most recent deed on file. The latest deed will tell you who the current owner of the property is. Here also, you may have to take a trip to the county’s recorder’s office and search for the deed to the property in person if the county does not have an online service.
Searching through public property owner records, whether tax records or property deeds, might seem like a good way to find the owner of a property. But, how to find out who owns a property WITHOUT an address? Successful real estate investors typically don’t go around their neighborhoods writing down addresses in order to find investment properties and perform a property owner search. Many of them don’t even invest in their local housing markets and still manage to find out who owns a property.
So let’s see how to find out who owns a property like the pros do.
How to Find Out Who Owns a Property in 6 Simple Steps
In order to find out who owns a property like a pro, you need to be equipped with an advanced tool that enables you to easily search for property owners in any location in the US real estate market, even if you don’t have any information on the property or the owner. The best tool that will help you perform a quick online property owner search is Mashboard.
With Mashboard, it’s actually fairly easy to find the owner of any off market property, with or without an address. In just a few simple steps, you can forgo the need to sift through local records to unearth property owner information. You can even build a property owner list so you can have a reliable source of off market real estate deals to turn to anytime in the future.
Related: 6 Reasons You Should Look for Off Market Real Estate Deals
Here are 6 steps on how to find out who owns a property using Mashboard.
Step 1: Sign Up for Mashvisor
In order to access Mashboard, you need to sign up for Mashvisor. By signing up for the platform, you will also gain access to other investment tools that are useful for real estate investing, including:
Take the first step.
You can request to book a demo with one of our experts at Mashvisor to help you understand how to use each one of these tools.
Related: 4 Best Property Search Tools for Investors in 2020
Step 2: Access Mashboard and Click ‘Add Owner List’
To start your online property owner search, access Mashboard through the Mashvisor platform and click on the ‘Add Owner List’ button, as shown in the picture below.
Step 3: Set the Filters
The next step is to set the filters for your property owner search. You will notice that there are several filters available, and which ones you’ll need to set will depend on whether or not you know the address of your subject property.
Finding Property Owners by Address:
If you know the address of your subject investment property, then go ahead and type it in the ‘Address’ field. Once you input the address of the property, you will notice that all the other location-related filters (‘State’, ‘City’, and ‘Zip Code’) will be automatically filled.
Finding Property Owners Without an Address:
If you do not have an address, you need to input any information that you have on the property or the area where you’d like to find off market properties. This means you will have to fill in the following filters:
- ‘State’
- ‘City’
- ‘Zip Code’
- ‘Address’ (here, you can type in the name of the neighborhood)
Besides the location-related filters, there are some other filters that you can set to narrow down your property owner search. These include:
- ‘Property Type’: This filter allows you to choose the type of real estate that you’re looking for. You have the option to select one of the following property types: single family home, multi family home, townhouse, apartment, duplex, condo/coop, and more.
- ‘Year Built’: You might be looking for an early 19th-century house in a historic district, or on the contrary, for a brand new and modern house. You can, therefore, use the ‘Year Built’ filter to specify a date range and find an investment property that was built within that range.
- ‘Sale Dates’: As a real estate investor, you should always take into account the sales date of the property you’re eyeing. A homeowner who recently purchased a property is less likely to be willing to sell. Using the ‘Sale Dates’ filter, you can, therefore, filter out all the investment properties that were recently sold. This will maximize your chances of finding owners that are willing to sell.
- ‘Contact Data’: This final filter allows you to choose which contact details you would like to receive about the property owner, such as their address, email, and phone number.
Once you’re done setting all the above filters, click on the ‘Add Contact’ button and the system will then gather the data for you.
Step 4: Download the CSV Report
Once the data is gathered, Mashboard will display a list of property owners based on your filter selections, along with their contact data, including:
- Owner’s Name
- Owner’s Address
- Owner’s Email
- Owner’s Phone Number
depending on which type of contact details you’ve chosen to receive.
You can then download the property ownership information in the form of a CSV report. Or, you can simply check out the ownership data on Mashboard.
Step 5: Connect with the Property Owners
Now that you have all the property owner information that you need, you can finally get in touch with the owners of the properties you are interested in and start negotiations. Mashboard allows you to contact the owners directly. You can actually send emails, email campaigns, as well as SMSs, all through the platform.
Keep in mind, however, that not every homeowner that you talk to will have a desire to sell their property to you right away. That’s why you need to make sure to adopt a smart real estate marketing strategy and combine it with effective negotiation tactics in order to be able to reach a deal.
Step 6: Repeat!
Since you have access to a large property ownership database, you can repeat the whole process again to create a new owners list, find motivated sellers, and close on new deals. That way, you will see your investment portfolio grow in no time.
Related: How to Grow Your Real Estate Investment Portfolio in 2020
Get Started Now
Determining property ownership is essential for real estate investors who are looking to buy income properties that are not on the market and expand their real estate investment portfolio. The best way to find out who owns a property is by using Mashboard. With Mashboard, you can search for property owners anywhere in the US with a single click of a button!
Sign up for Mashvisor to start using Mashboard and find rental properties and their owners right away.
