What is the difference between skip tracing and contact-data match append?

PropertyRadar calls its phone and email purchase a match-append, and the same guide describes it as basic skip tracing. Tracerfy sells a lookup that takes an owner name and a property address and returns phones and emails for 2 cents a hit. It calls that product a Normal Skip Trace, though the product does the job of an append.

Other products start from less. REISkip and BatchData both take a property address without an owner's name, and both call the result skip tracing. REISkip's FAQ says the person it returns could be the owner or a tenant.

The input separates these products more usefully than the label does. A product that needs the owner's name attaches contacts to an owner you've already identified. A product that takes an address alone has to identify someone linked to that address first. You then have to confirm that person is the owner before you rely on the contact data. How to test a skip tracing provider's accuracy gives a method for checking any of them against your own records.

Suppose your list holds an absentee-owned house. The record has the owner's name, the site address, a mailing address in another city, and the county and parcel number. Those are the fields worth collecting before a skip trace. The record has no phone and no email.

Start with the append. On a plan you already pay for, it comes out of the monthly allowance or costs a few cents per additional contact, and it takes one purchase. In PropertyRadar, a record from a list you built there is already matched. A record you bring in from elsewhere is matched on import. The import instructions rank county plus parcel number as the highest-confidence match, followed by a full address. Anything under your match threshold waits for manual review.

Buying the phone from the Contacts tab or the Actions menu ends one of three ways. If contact data is on file, you get the numbers available for that contact, each with a status icon. The contact comes out of your allowance or is charged at your plan's rate. If nothing is on file, PropertyRadar's help article says no purchase icon or link appears, and you pay nothing.

The third outcome takes longer to show. You buy the numbers, run them through your do-not-call and suppression screen, call the ones that clear, and end up marking them Disconnected or Wrong Person. That purchase was charged, and purchases are non-refundable.

The manual follow-up starts when the append returned nothing, or when the numbers it returned have been marked Disconnected or Wrong Person after your attempts. Why skip tracing returns wrong or disconnected numbers covers that second case. Mail that comes back from the tax-record address is another reason to keep going.

From here the work costs a person's time, so decide first whether the record deserves it. Check it against the criteria you used to prioritize the list, and set a stopping point for each owner before the research starts.

PropertyRadar's guide lays out the follow-up in order, and it begins by asking whether the owner is a person or a company. For an LLC or a trust, finding the decision-maker comes first. Some products return the individuals behind an entity, BatchData's among them.

For the absentee owner in this example, the first move is to mail the address on the tax record, which you already have. If the piece comes back, read it. Returned mail can carry forwarding information, depending on the mail service used. Next, look at the other addresses associated with the owner and treat each one as a lead to verify. A rental the owner holds may be occupied by a tenant, so it isn't a dependable route to the owner.

After that, run the property address through a product that takes an address alone, such as Tracerfy's Advanced Skip Trace or REISkip. The result is a lead on a person, and it needs confirming. The guide's remaining steps are a search of the owner's name online and on social media, a conversation with neighbors, and a look for relatives through genealogy sites. A background check or a private investigator comes last, for a property that justifies the cost.

The append returns data or nothing in one purchase, while most of the later steps need a person to judge what a result means. PropertyRadar's guide draws its own line in the same place, between a basic phone and email lookup and advanced skip tracing. Record where each owner's trace stopped so nobody repeats the work. When the trace runs out, the options for an owner with no valid phone or email cover what's left.

Suppose an investor on the Solo plan builds a list of 400 absentee owners in one county. Solo's monthly allowance is 250 phones plus 250 emails, and each additional contact costs 8 cents. From the Actions menu the investor chooses Purchase Phones, then Primary Contact. That buys for one contact per property, where All contacts would buy for every contact on it.

Assume 300 of the 400 primary contacts have a phone on file, each one counts as a single billable contact, and none of the month's allowance has been used. The 100 with nothing on file aren't charged. Of the 300, the first 250 come out of the allowance and the other 50 cost $4.00 on top of the Solo subscription of $119 a month. If all 400 had a phone on file, the overage would be 150 contacts, or $12.00 on top of the subscription.

The purchase screen shows the count and the cost before you accept. Unused allowance doesn't roll into the next month, and data you've already bought isn't charged again.

Each purchased number carries a status icon in the owner profile: a green check for Active, and a yellow triangle for Opted Out, Wrong Person, Disconnected or Do Not Call. The Do Not Call status appears only if your account has accessed DNC data, so the screen still comes before dialing.

The 100 owners with nothing on file become the trace list. Both address-only products charge only for the owners they find. At the listed unit rates, 100 successful hits would cost $4.00 at Tracerfy's Advanced rate and $15.00 at REISkip's, before any minimum order or tax.