Using public records to find pre-market listing opportunities
Long ownership, absentee owners, permit activity and liens: the public-record signals that help you find homeowners who may be ready to sell before they list.
Every property leaves a trail in public records: who owns it, when they bought it, what they paid, what they owe and what has been filed against it. Read together, those records can tell you a lot about who is likely to move soon.
The signals worth watching
- Length of ownership: owners past the ten-year mark often have the equity and the life changes that lead to a move
- Equity: little or nothing left on the mortgage makes selling easier
- Absentee ownership: owners who live elsewhere are more open to selling, especially landlords who are tired of managing
- Vacancy: a home nobody has lived in for months often means an estate, a move or a decision pending
- Permits: renovations sometimes come just before a listing
- Tax and lien filings: financial pressure can make a sale more likely
No single signal is enough
Any one of these on its own produces a lot of false positives. The value comes from combining them. A long-term owner with high equity who now lives out of state, at a property that has been vacant for four months, is a very different prospect from someone who simply bought a long time ago.
Turning data into a conversation
The point of the research is to make your outreach relevant. Mention the street, recent sales nearby and what their home might be worth today. Be respectful: some of these signals come from difficult situations, and the tone should reflect that.
Cedar pulls these records for every home in your area, merges them into one record per property and scores each home from 0 to 100, so you know which doors to knock on first.
