US public-records leads

What it is

Motivated-seller signals from free public records for a US county or city. They're homes that might sell before they reach the market. Each row says what the record says, when it's dated, and the owner of record where one is published.

It's free: no credits. Phone numbers and emails are taken out of every row.

Where to open it

In a US workspace, open Off-market lists. Type a county with its state (“Wake County, NC”) or a city (“Houston, TX”), tick the kinds to show, and tap Find leads. A city is read as its whole county.

Tap Stack it on a row to run the numbers on that home. Only owners and partners see off-market leads.

What each kind means

• Foreclosure: a foreclosure notice or filing against the home.
• Tax sale: the home is listed for, or has gone through, a tax sale or tax foreclosure.
• Tax delinquent: the owner is behind on property taxes.
• Probate: an estate is going through probate, so the owner may have died. Some probate rows are a possible match by name only: check them before you use them.
• Vacant: a vacant or boarded-up building, a vacant registration, or a vacant lot (in some counties, only lots owned from out of state).
• Code violation: a code case or complaint, such as blight, an unsafe structure or a housing complaint.
• Land bank: a home the local land bank holds or has up for sale.

Being on a list doesn't mean the owner wants to sell. It's a reason to reach out, with care.

Where it comes from

Every row comes from public records: lists that counties and cities publish themselves, such as code cases, tax rolls, court and clerk records and land bank stock. DealWolf reads them as they're published and doesn't add to them.

Not every county publishes these lists, and the ones that do publish different kinds. So one area might have code violations and vacant homes but no probate. Some lists are only shown where the publisher's terms allow it, so a few areas show fewer kinds.

Why some areas are slower

DealWolf reads each county's own records live, and goes gently so it doesn't overload their servers: in some places that's one request a second. Areas with several lists take longer.

• A list that takes longer than 20 seconds, or is down, is left out of that search. Search again later to try it again.
• Each list is kept for a day, so a second search in the same area is quick. A list that only came back in part isn't kept, so the next search tries it again.
• At most 300 rows show at once, shared across the kinds you ticked, newest first.