Skip Tracing for Real Estate Investors

Skip Trace Quality Tiers

Budget Providers ($0.05-0.10/record)

What you get: - Single data source - 45-55% hit rate - 34-42% owner verification rate - Mobile numbers often outdated

Best for: Testing new markets with minimal investment, throwaway lists

Red flags: If a provider offers unlimited skip for flat monthly fee, assume budget-tier data.

Standard Providers ($0.10-0.18/record)

What you get: - 2-3 data sources aggregated - 58-65% hit rate - 52-60% owner verification rate - Better mobile number currency

Best for: Most operators, balanced cost/quality

Premium Multi-Source ($0.20-0.35/record)

What you get: - 6-8 data sources cross-referenced - 67-78% hit rate - 71-82% owner verification rate - Multiple phone numbers per record (2-3 average) - Better DNC scrubbing

Best for: High-volume operators, cold calling operations, markets with high data decay

The Real Skip Trace ROI Math

Example: 1,000 Record Cold Calling Campaign

Budget Skip ($0.10/record = $100 total): - Hit rate: 50% = 500 callable records - Contact rate: 45% = 225 conversations - Owner verification: 34% = 77 actual owner conversations - At 3 min/conversation: 231 minutes of real conversations - Cost per real owner conversation: $1.30

Premium Skip ($0.28/record = $280 total): - Hit rate: 72% = 720 callable records - Contact rate: 67% = 482 conversations - Owner verification: 71% = 342 actual owner conversations - At 3 min/conversation: 1,026 minutes of real conversations - Cost per real owner conversation: $0.82

Delta: $180 more spent, 265 more owner conversations, $0.48 cheaper per conversation.

At a 2% conversation-to-deal rate: - Budget: 1.5 deals from campaign - Premium: 6.8 deals from campaign

The premium skip trace paid for itself 25x over.

When to Upgrade Your Skip Trace

Signals You're Under-Skipping

1. Wrong number rate above 25% - You're paying callers to dial disconnected lines
2. "Who is this?" rate above 30% - You're reaching people who don't own the property
3. Re-skip requests from callers - Numbers are so bad they need fresh data mid-campaign
4. Contact rate below 50% - Half your dials aren't connecting

The Volume Threshold

At 50+ deals/year, you're likely skip tracing 3,000-5,000 records monthly. At that volume:

Premium costs $720 more but delivers 4.4x more owner conversations.

Multi-Number Strategy

Single-number skip traces leave deals on the table. Here's why multiple numbers matter:

First Number (Primary Mobile): - Contact rate: 67% - Already called by most competitors

Second Number (Secondary Mobile/Landline): - Contact rate: 34% - Called by 40% fewer competitors

Third Number (Relative/Associate): - Contact rate: 22% - Called by almost no competitors

At $0.08 per additional number, the second and third numbers often produce the cheapest conversations in your campaign.

Skip Trace Freshness

Contact data decays at predictable rates:

Rule of thumb: Re-skip any list you haven't contacted in 6+ months. The $0.15-0.25 per record is cheaper than wasted dials.