Finding off-market opportunities can steal hours from your week. This guide was created by reviewing software docs, USPS address hygiene resources, and FCC and FTC compliance pages, then boiling the best practices into a simple playbook any investor or agent can follow.
Choose software that does the heavy lifting
Start by picking a skip tracing tool that fits your workflow. Look for bulk search, tiered match results, and the ability to return multiple phone numbers and emails per contact. Prioritize platforms that enrich records with alternative contacts, such as relatives or LLC managers, so you have more than one path to a conversation.
Use the first pass to expand your contact options, then test which channels work for your market. Your first mention of outreach should include skip tracing as the method that unlocks more numbers and emails in minutes, not days.
Strong tools also reduce mail waste by supporting address standardization and change of address checks. USPS explains that addresses should be standardized before they qualify as deliverable, and CASS certification helps verify and correct common errors such as abbreviations and ZIP codes. This keeps your list clean before you ever send a letter.
If your outreach includes mail, ask vendors about NCOALink. It is a secure USPS dataset with roughly 160 million permanent change of address records, and licensed providers can use it to improve deliverability and reduce return-to-sender headaches. In short, you will reach more owners with less waste.
Finally, think about ROI beyond price per record. Independent research has linked better data access to shorter sales cycles, saving your team time. Nucleus Research reports that data accessibility for salespeople can shorten the sales cycle by about 8 to 14 percent, a meaningful gain when you are chasing competitive properties.
Speed up your daily workflow
Pull smarter lists. Start with high-intent segments, such as long tenured owners, vacant indicators, tax delinquency, or code violations. Run bulk traces on those lists, then tag results by quality, for example, good number, bad number, or relative. Quality tags help you avoid re-dialing the same dead ends and let you delegate follow-up with confidence.
Verify once, then reuse everywhere. When you confirm a working number or corrected mailing address, lock it into your system. If you mail, stay compliant with USPS Move Update rules by using one of the approved methods, such as NCOALink or Address Change Service, so you do not pay for undeliverable mail.
Integrate with your CRM. Skip tracing saves the most time when results sync to your CRM without manual copying. Auto-create contacts, attach property records, and push outcomes from calls and texts back into the same timeline. Teams that centralize data see faster cycles, and the Nucleus analysis above quantifies that gain when data is accessible at the moment of outreach.
Use quick outreach templates. Build short scripts for first contact by phone, text, and mail. Keep the first message brief, mention the specific property, and ask permission to continue. For example, “Are you open to a quick chat about 123 Elm Street?” is simple, respectful, and easy to answer.
Create a tight follow-up rhythm. Most replies come after a few touchpoints. Plan a six to eight-week cadence that blends calls, compliant one-to-one texts, and a plain letter. Log every outcome so your next touch reflects the last conversation, not a cold start.
Keep accuracy and compliance on your side
Honor Do Not Call and opt-outs. If you, or a vendor acting on your behalf, place telemarketing calls, the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule requires scrubbing against the National Do Not Call Registry and honoring opt-outs. Keep your internal do-not-call list current and apply it across every campaign. The FTC’s business guidance outlines the obligations in plain language, and the consumer FAQ explains how the Registry works. Build these checks into your process so compliance does not slow your team later.
Know the TCPA rules for calls and texts. When using automated or prerecorded outreach, the FCC’s TCPA rules require specific consents, and consumers can revoke consent in any reasonable manner. Make sure your team records consent status and honors revocation across tools, not just in one app.
Prepare for the one-to-one consent standard. If you capture leads from comparison or lead gen forms, the FCC’s one-to-one consent rule takes effect January 27, 2025. Each seller must have its own prior express written consent for robocalls or robotexts. Align your forms and vendors so consent maps to you specifically, not to a long list of unrelated sellers.
Standardize your data before outreach. Make address standardization and CASS checks part of your skip tracing workflow so you do not waste time and money chasing bad addresses. USPS provides technical guides and resources that your vendors should follow, which means fewer returns and cleaner matching when you trace again later.
A simple 30-minute daily plan
- Load a targeted list of 50 to 100 properties and run a bulk trace.
- Auto sync new phones and emails into your CRM, then de-duplicate.
- Verify addresses with an NCOALink-enabled service if you plan to mail.
- Make ten calls using a short opener, then log outcomes in your CRM.
- Send compliant one-to-one texts to non-answering owners and note consent.
- Queue a plain letter to verified addresses for anyone who did not answer, using standardized addressing to improve deliverability.
- Schedule follow-ups based on interest level and set next steps, such as a second call in three days or a postcard in two weeks.
Move faster without missing the details
Skip tracing tools save time when they expand contact options, pipe clean data into your CRM, and keep your team compliant. Focus on features that speed the work, such as bulk tracing, instant enrichment, and CRM sync. Standardize and verify addresses to cut mail waste. Honor Do Not Call rules and track consent so your outreach stays on the right side of the law. With this foundation, professionals spend less time researching and more time closing, and, with one more nod to the research, accessible data helps shorten selling cycles, which compounds into more conversations and more offers over a quarter.