PropertyScout's owner data

How we get the data and how it works.

During the early testing of PropertyScout, I got feedback nearly every day asking if we will be providing the owner's names and addresses. It's very important to have that data, and providing it makes your marketing process much simpler. The trouble is, the data isn't free, and with our relatively low monthly subscription cost, we had to find a way to offer this data without raising prices.

From now on, every time an address gets submitted to your PropertyScout account, the owner's name and mailing information is automatically added to the submitted lead in your address sheet, so you have everything you need to send direct mail or skip trace the property. This simplifies the process a lot, and helps you get to the distressed sellers faster.

We're going to be up front here. Each searched address costs us $0.20 cents, so to offer unlimited searches would not be possible. The compromise we came up with is to offer 50 searches per month, per account included with your subscription. If you hit your monthly quota or would like to have it raised, reach out to us and we'll raise it at cost.

If you're an early tester, you've been grandfathered in at $14.99 a month for life. To new users, the subscription cost is $19.99 a month to pay for the included data and improvements to the system since the end of early testing. It's still a bargain compared to other real estate software.

The good news about the quotas

Without getting into the boring details, we'll be able to benefit from economies of scale. As PropertyScout grows, we'll be able provide the same quality ownership records at a much lower rate. Once we hit a certain milestone with subscriptions, the cost of the data will drop to $0.05 cents per search. Everyone's quotas will be raised, and recharge prices will drop too.

Where do we get the data

We are using Estaded to pull ownership records on each submitted property. It's a new relationship, but the data seems to be high quality and available in most municipalities.

A word of caution

It's not common for a for-profit company like ours to advise customers to be wary of an aspect of their own product, but our sincere goal is to help you close deals and improve your community, not make a profit. With that said, it would be wise to be cautious with trusting the owner data we provide. Ownership records provided by the big data brokers we source from is NOT ALWAYS ACCURATE OR AVAILABLE. Experienced investors among you may have found that the data provided by REI software companies, even the expensive ones, are not always reliable.

PropertyScout and its competitors buy the data we provide you in bulk from the same few data brokers. These data brokers make their money by collecting and standardizing property data that is free locally, and making it available nationally. Using their information is the only way we can offer you ownership information at a national level, and for that reason we're bound by the accuracy they provide.

We highly recommend comparing the owner data you get from PropertyScout with county records, particularly those related to tax collection, as they tend to be the most accurate. If things don't match up, don't spend your marketing dollars on leads with outdated or incorrect data. Go straight to the source, and you will have a leg up on your competition.