Tax Assessors and Public Records in Central New York

[Stephen Paunovski]

I'm moving forward in setting up shop in REI and on wholesaling pre-forclosed homes in Central New York. I focusing on advertising and developing programs to get people to contact me, but a lot of REI on BiggerPockets suggest looking into tax assessors and into public records to find properties with lis pendens, divorced owners, and out of state owners.

My question is whether it's worth it to contact tax assessors and look into public tax records. What am I looking out for here and how do I get this sort of information?