You’ve got a list of properties you want to buy but you need a way to reach the people who own them.
Skip tracing fixes that. It turns an address and an owner name into a phone number you can call.
This guide covers how skip tracing works, how to stay on the right side of calling rules, and 9 tools worth a look. We’ll also cover what to do once the numbers come back, because that’s where most investors lose the lead.
What is skip tracing?
Skip tracing is how you find contact information for the owners of properties you want to buy. Mostly that means phone numbers, though many tools also return emails, current mailing addresses, and relatives.
It’s especially useful for owners who are hard to reach: people who moved without a forwarding address, or who own a vacant property they don’t live near.
Skip tracing tools pull from public records and other data sources. You upload your list, and the tool matches each owner to the contact details it can find.
How investors use skip tracing
Off-market deals start with a conversation, and you can’t have one without a phone number.
Skip tracing works best on big batches. Investors pull lists from property data platforms, public records, or driving for dollars, then skip trace the whole list at once. Looking up owners one by one takes too long to be worth it.
Agents use it too. Skip tracing helps them reach owners who might sell but haven’t listed yet.
How accurate is skip tracing?
No tool finds every owner. The data behind these tools is mostly accurate, but it isn’t always current. Some numbers will be disconnected, and some will belong to someone else.
That’s why the tool you pick matters, and why you should track every number you call. More on that below.
Is skip tracing legal?
Yes. Skip tracing itself is legal in the U.S. How you use the numbers is where the rules come in.
[COMPLIANCE SECTION: Justin and Ryan to sign off before publishing.]
Before you call or text a skip-traced list, keep these in mind:
- The National Do Not Call Registry. Scrub your list against it before you dial. Many skip tracing tools flag or remove DNC numbers for you.
- Texting needs extra care. Texts to cell phones fall under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), and the consent rules are stricter than most investors expect.
- Litigators. Some people sue over calls and texts as a business. Litigator scrubbing removes known serial plaintiffs from your list.
- State rules. Some states add their own calling hours, registries, and texting rules on top of the federal ones.
Whether a call offering to buy someone’s house counts as a sales call isn’t settled everywhere. Scrub your lists, keep records of who asked not to be contacted, and talk to an attorney about your outreach plan.
What to do before you skip trace
Your data is your list of property addresses, owner names, and whatever else you’ve collected. Clean it up before you pay to skip trace it.
- Put it all in one place. Move paper lists into a spreadsheet, and pull leads out of separate tools into one file.
- Check for typos. A misspelled name or street can return the wrong owner or no match at all.
- Remove duplicates. Most tools charge per record or per match, so duplicates cost you twice.
[VIDEO: how to skip trace for free. Verify the embed is still live.]
9 skip tracing tools at a glance
We grouped these tools by how you pay: free plans and free trials first, then pay as you go, then subscriptions with no trial.
| Tool | Pricing model | Starting price | Free option | Best for |
| PropStream | Subscription | $99/month (skip tracing included from $199) | 7-day trial | Pulling lists and skip tracing them in one place |
| REsimpli | Subscription (CRM) | $299/month | 14-day trial | Calling and texting from a CRM with skip tracing built in |
| DealMachine | Subscription | $99/seat/month | 7-day trial | Driving for dollars |
| DataSift (formerly REISift) | Subscription | 149/month(+97 for unlimited skip tracing) | 7-day trial | Tracking which numbers are good across stacked lists |
| Lead Sherpa | Free plan + pay per record, or subscription | $0/month, $0.15/record | Free plan | Texting leads with compliance tools built in |
| REISkip | Pay per match | $0.15/match | No monthly fee | Small batches |
| BatchSkipTracing | Pay per result | [VERIFY] | No monthly fee [VERIFY] | Occasional large lists |
| Skip Genie | Subscription | $58/month | None | Hard-to-find owners |
| Mojo Skip Tracer | Subscription | 59/month(49 + $10 access fee) | None | Unlimited lookups that feed a dialer |
Prices were last checked in September 2026. Skip tracing vendors change pricing often, so confirm on the vendor’s site before you sign up.
Skip tracing tools with a free plan or free trial
1. PropStream
PropStream is a property data platform with skip tracing built in. You can pull a targeted list and get the owners’ phone numbers without leaving the platform. PropStream says its data covers 98% of U.S. adults.
Every plan includes web and mobile access, free property and contact imports, and an AI search that turns a plain-language request into a filtered property search. Skip tracing is free on the Pro and Elite plans, and both include click-to-dial calling. [VERIFY: DNC scrubbing on skip-traced numbers.]
[DISCLOSURE: one line on the PropStream partnership. Confirm wording.]
Pricing:
- 7-day free trial with 50 free leads on every plan
- Essentials: $99/month for 25,000 saves and exports a month
- Pro: $199/month for 50,000 saves and exports, 2 team members, free skip tracing, click-to-dial calling, and Lead Automator for 50,000 properties
- Elite: $699/month for 100,000 saves and exports, 9 team members, free skip tracing, click-to-dial calling, and Lead Automator for 120,000 properties
- Annual billing adds extra value on every plan
Best for: building lists from property data and skip tracing them in the same place. Pick Pro or higher if you want skip tracing included.
[VIDEO: Ryan Dossey’s top PropStream lists. Verify the embed is still live.]
2. REsimpli
REsimpli is an all-in-one CRM built by real estate investors. Skip tracing is free on every plan, and it feeds straight into a triple-line dialer with unlimited calling and texting. List stacking and a driving for dollars app come with every plan too. You get a 14-day free trial and free onboarding.
Pricing:
- Solo: $299/month for 1 user
- Team: $899/month for 5 users
- Business: $2,199/month for 15 users
- Paying yearly saves up to 29% (Solo drops to $249/month)
Best for: investors who want to skip trace, call, and track leads from one CRM.
3. DealMachine
DealMachine started as a driving for dollars app. It now covers nationwide property and owner data, saved searches, and API and Zapier connections. Plans are priced per seat, and each seat comes with a monthly batch of data credits. You get a 7-day free trial.
Pricing:
- Basic: $99 per seat/month, with 10,000 data credits per seat
- Pro: $149 per seat/month, with 20,000 data credits per seat, premium filters, and priority support
- Scale: $599/month per package, with 100,000 records, 10 workspace seats, SSO, and a dedicated account manager
Best for: investors who find deals on the road and want owner info on the spot.
4. DataSift (formerly REISift)
DataSift, formerly REISift, is a data management platform for real estate investors. It removes duplicates, tracks which phone numbers are good and which are dead, and stacks lists so you can see which owners show up on more than one. That number tracking saves a lot of wasted dials.
Skip tracing is a $97/month add-on for unlimited traces, or included on the Expert plan and up. You get a 7-day free trial.
Pricing:
- Professional: $149/month for 3 users, 10,000 new properties a month, and up to 15 phone numbers per record
- Business: $299/month for 5 users, 25,000 new properties a month, unlimited sequences, and up to 30 phone numbers per record
- Expert: $499/month for 15 users, 50,000 new properties a month, and unlimited skip tracing
- AI: $1,250/month for 30 users, 100,000 new properties a month, and AI lead scoring
- Unlimited skip tracing add-on: $97/month on Professional and Business
- Paying yearly saves two months on every plan
Best for: investors with messy lists who want to know which numbers are worth calling.
5. Lead Sherpa
Lead Sherpa is an SMS and skip tracing platform built for real estate investors. Its skip tracing includes ownership data behind LLCs, so you reach the person who actually owns the property. Every plan, including the free one, comes with list building, a compliance monitoring dashboard, and Podio and Zapier integrations.
Pricing:
- Free: $0/month, skip tracing at $0.15 per billable record, up to 900 texts a month
- Starter: $149/month, 5,000 free skip traces and up to 15,000 texts a month
- Core: $499/month, 15,000 free skip traces and up to 45,000 texts a month
- Pro: $1,299/month, 40,000 free skip traces and up to 100,000 texts a month
- Carrier fees from Telnyx or Twilio are billed separately
Best for: investors who plan to text their leads and want compliance tracking built in.
Pay-as-you-go skip tracing tools
These tools don’t need a subscription. You pay for the matches you get.
6. REISkip
REISkip is skip tracing software built for real estate investors and agents. It cross-checks several data sources to find the most current numbers for each owner, which it calls Skip Trace Triangulation. Opening an account is free, and you only pay per match. [VERIFY: DNC scrubbing.]
Pricing:
- Bulk: $0.15 per match (50-match minimum)
- Volume: $0.15 per match (1,001-match minimum)
- Custom: quoted for high-volume needs
- Both per-match rates are listed as introductory pricing
Best for: small batches while you’re getting started.
7. BatchSkipTracing
[VERIFY ALL: confirm BatchSkipTracing is still operating and update every figure below. If it doesn’t check out, swap in Prime Tracers or Geopoint from the BPM post.]
BatchSkipTracing is one of the biggest names in skip tracing. It isn’t built only for real estate, but it works well for finding property owners. It says it has [325 million] records and has worked with [45,000+] businesses.
There’s no subscription. You pay [$0.20] per result, which runs a little higher than some tools on this list. The trade-off is no monthly bill.
Best for: investors who run a big list now and then and don’t want a monthly fee.
Subscription skip tracing tools
8. Skip Genie
Skip Genie is built for tracking down owners who are hard to reach. Search by person to get addresses, phone numbers, and relatives. Search by property to find the people tied to it and the other properties they own. If an owner has no contact info, you can trace their relatives instead.
There are no long-term contracts, and subscribers get a discount on DNC scrubbing and connection checks.
Pricing:
- Skip Genie #1 Plan: $58/month for 100 searches
- Additional searches: $0.17 each
- Lower per-search rates on larger lists
- Unused searches don’t roll over and end when you cancel
Best for: investors who trace a small number of hard-to-find owners each month.
9. Mojo Skip Tracer
Mojo makes sales tools for agents, investors, and other businesses, including a lead manager and a dialer. Its skip tracer adds updated phone numbers and emails to your leads with unlimited use and nationwide coverage. Traced numbers go straight into Mojo’s call lists. Billing is month to month, with no contracts.
Pricing:
- Skip Tracer: $49/month for unlimited skip tracing
- Agent Access: $10/month per user, required on every account
- Optional dialers: $89/month for single line, $139/month for triple line
Best for: investors who make a lot of calls and want unlimited lookups on a fixed budget.
How to pick a skip tracing tool
Start with volume. If you trace a few hundred records a month, a free plan or pay-as-you-go tool costs less than a subscription. Once you’re into the thousands, a plan with included traces usually wins.
Next, think about where the numbers go. If you already use a CRM or dialer, pick a tool that exports cleanly into it. If you don’t, an all-in-one like REsimpli or DataSift keeps your lists, numbers, and call notes together.
Planning to call or text? Choose a tool with DNC and litigator scrubbing built in. It’s cheaper than cleaning the list later.
What to do after you skip trace
Now you call. Here’s what that looks like in practice:
[VIDEO: cold call example. Verify the embed is still live.]
Sometimes you’ll reach the owner. Sometimes you won’t. When someone else picks up, ask if they know the owner. You might get lucky.
Tag every number you call with its outcome:
- Did Not Answer
- Do Not Contact
- Wrong Number
- Interested
After a few hundred dials, you won’t remember who’s who. Your tags will.
Don’t miss the callbacks
Here’s the part most investors miss. When you call a big list, you leave a lot of voicemails. Those owners call back on their own schedule, often while you’re on another call, driving, or done for the day.
A motivated seller who calls back and gets voicemail usually doesn’t try again. They call the next investor on their list.
That’s what Call Porter is built for. Our U.S.-based team answers your calls live, screens and qualifies the lead, and books the appointment on your calendar. You keep dialing, and no callback slips through.
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Ways to get more deals from skip tracing
Skip trace niche lists and call them
Niche lists target owners in specific situations, like:
- Bankruptcy
- Foreclosure
- Tax liens
- Code violations
These owners are more likely to sell, and more likely to sell at a discount. Most data providers give you the address only, so skip trace the list and call it. Our favorite place to pull niche lists is PropStream.
Cold calling still works, and skip tracing makes it far more targeted. Instead of dialing random numbers, you’re calling owners who already fit what you’re looking for.
Call your mailing list after the mail lands
If you already send mail to a list, skip trace it too. Then call each owner a few days after the mail arrives. Few investors do this.
The call can be as simple as:
“Hi, this is [name]. I sent you a letter about your property on [street] and wanted to follow up. Have you given any thought to selling?”
The call puts a voice behind the mail, and it can lift your response rate.
Skip trace your return-to-sender mail
When mail comes back with a bad address, don’t throw it out. Skip trace those owners and call them.
If other investors are mailing the same owners, they’re getting the same returns, and most of them toss them. A phone call gets you to that owner first.
Final thoughts
Skip tracing gets you the number. What you do next decides whether it turns into a deal.
No skip tracing tool is 100% accurate, but any of the 9 above will get you more owners to call. Pick one that fits your volume and budget, track every dial, and make sure someone answers when sellers call back.
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