Short answer
What is a motivated seller list?
It’s a list of owners whose records show a reason to sell before the market finds them: a house they don’t live in, a loan that’s paid off, a tax bill that’s past due, a foreclosure filing. None of those means the owner wants to sell. Each one means a letter or a call has a better shot than a random address on the same street.
The records behind every list come from county assessor and recorder filings, compiled into one nationwide dataset and refreshed monthly. That’s why the lists exist for every county, and why a list goes stale if it sits in a drawer.
Which list types are there, and how is each defined?
Seven lists, each one a yes/no flag on the property record:
| List | A property is on it when | Works best for |
|---|---|---|
| Absentee owners | The owner's mailing address is somewhere other than the property, so they don't live there. | Wholesalers: Mail the owner at the address they actually read and offer a quick, as-is sale. |
| High equity | Estimated value sits well above the open loan balance, leaving the owner a large equity cushion. | Wholesalers and flippers: Target owners who can accept a discount and still come out ahead. |
| Free and clear | No open mortgage or lien is recorded against the property. | Seller-finance buyers: Offer monthly payments in place of a bank loan. |
| Pre-foreclosure | A foreclosure filing, such as a notice of default or lis pendens, is on record and the sale hasn't happened yet. | Wholesalers and investors: Offer a fast sale before the auction date. |
| Tax delinquent | The county tax record shows property taxes past due. | Wholesalers: Offer to buy and settle the back taxes at closing. |
| Vacant | The address is flagged as unoccupied in the source data. | Wholesalers and flippers: Find empty houses that are likely to need work. |
| Corporate owned | Title is held by an LLC, corporation or other business entity rather than a person. | Wholesalers: Build a buyers list of active investors in the county. |
Absentee owners is the widest list and the usual place to start. Pre-foreclosure and tax delinquent are the smallest and change fastest. Free and clear and high equity tell you what kind of offer the owner can say yes to.
How do you build the list, step by step?
Step01
Pick a county you can work
Choose the market where you can price a house without guessing and get someone to the property. A huge county you can’t close in is worth less than a small one you can.
Step02
Choose the list that matches your offer
- Cash at a discount: high equity or absentee owners.
- Seller financing or terms: free and clear.
- A fast close before a deadline: pre-foreclosure or tax delinquent.
- Building a buyers list: corporate owned.
Step03
Check the count before you pay
Every list shows its record count for the county, and for any city or ZIP inside it, before you order. If the count is bigger than this month’s mail budget, narrow to a ZIP.
Step04
Stack inside the file
Open the CSV and sort on the
signalscolumn. An absentee owner who is also tax delinquent goes above one who is only absentee. You get the other signals with every row, so there’s no second list to buy just to stack.Step05
Clean it before the first touch
Mail to
mail_address, not the property address, or absentee owners never see your letter. If you ever combine two orders for the same area, drop repeats onapnpluscounty_fips.Step06
Log every touch by parcel
Keep one row per property with the date of each letter or call and what happened. When the next monthly drop lands, re-pull the list and compare: new rows get a first letter, old rows keep their sequence.
How does stacking lists work?
Stacking ranks owners by how many reasons to sell they have at the same time. One signal earns a letter; two or three put the owner at the top of the pile and earn your best follow-up. Because each row already names every list it belongs to, a stack is just a count of the entries in signals, sorted high to low. The stacking playbook has the one-cell spreadsheet formula.
What does a list cost at 2¢ a record?
Records times 2¢, with a $10 minimum. No subscription, no setup fee, no charge for the extra signals on each row.
| Records ordered | You pay |
|---|---|
| 500 | $10.00 |
| 1,000 | $20.00 |
| 2,500 | $50.00 |
| 5,000 | $100.00 |
| 10,000 | $200.00 |
| 25,000 | $500.00 |
The list is the cheap part. Postage, printing and your time on the phone cost far more per owner than the record does, so size the order to the outreach you can afford, not to the whole county.
How do you use it for direct mail and calls within the rules?
Direct mail is the simplest channel: the list includes owner names and mailing addresses, and a plain, honest letter needs nothing else. Say who you are, don’t dress the envelope up as a government or bank notice, and take anyone off your list who asks.
Calls and texts need phone numbers, which the lists don’t include. They come from skip tracing, available through Acquired Data. Before you dial:
- Scrub every number against the National Do Not Call Registry, any state list, and your own opt-outs.
- Treat texts like calls. Automated marketing texts and calls to cell phones generally need the owner’s prior written consent, which a skip-traced number doesn’t have.
- Call only at reasonable local hours, give your name and company, and stop the moment you’re asked.
Not legal advice
Telemarketing and solicitation rules differ by state and change often. Check yours, or ask a lawyer, before you call or text at scale.
What can’t you use a motivated seller list for?
Use it for
- Letters and postcards offering to buy the property
- Calls to owners after a Do Not Call scrub
- Finding investors to sell your deals to
- Researching a market before you buy in it
Never use it for
- Tenant screening or rental applications
- Hiring or any employment decision
- Credit, lending or insurance eligibility
- Anything else the Fair Credit Reporting Act covers
Lead Recycle isn’t a consumer reporting agency, and the lists aren’t consumer reports. That’s what makes the FCRA uses above off limits, whatever the list says about an owner.
Questions
What is a motivated seller list?
A list of property owners whose public records show a reason they might sell soon: they live elsewhere, hold a lot of equity, owe nothing, are behind on property taxes, have a foreclosure filing, own a vacant house, or hold title through a company.
Which motivated seller list should I start with?
The one that matches the offer you make. Absentee owners is the widest and the usual first list; pre-foreclosure and tax delinquent are smaller and more time-sensitive; free and clear suits seller-finance offers.
What does stacking lists mean?
Ranking owners by how many signals they have at once, such as absentee plus tax delinquent. Every row in the CSV lists all of its signals, so you stack by sorting one file instead of buying several lists and matching them.
How much does a motivated seller list cost?
2¢ a record with a $10 minimum and no subscription, so 2,500 owners cost $50.00 and any order of 500 records or fewer costs $10.
Can I use a motivated seller list for tenant or credit screening?
No. Lead Recycle is not a consumer reporting agency, so lists cannot be used for any purpose covered by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, including tenant screening, hiring, credit and insurance decisions. They are for marketing to buy property.
Before you order your first list