Where to go to find property information

[Tim Moore]

Hey BP! My wife and I have been talking about buying a multi family as our first home, house hacking and then building on from there. We were at one of our friends' houses the other day and she mentioned that the duplex on the corner had been owned by a couple that passed away and was now in possession of their son who has left it vacant. Intrigued, I wanted to try and find more information on the property and see if we could reach out to him. Just from a quick look on the easy sites (Zillow, Trulia, etc) it said that the deed to the house had been sold for 10k in December of 2015. I'm a little confused as to what that means to be completely honest. Does it just mean that my friend, who has been living on the street for 20+ years, doesn't have her information right on who owns the property? Or is there some sort of transaction that would've happened when this guys' parents passed away? I was under the presumption that if you have property passed down to you in will or trust etc there's no sale that needs to happen, but I could just be naive about the whole process. Let me know what your thoughts are because we want to reach out to the son and make an offer if the property is just sitting there. Thanks for the feedback!

[Tim Moore]

@Hugo Alves @Samuel Lynch Thanks guys! I've never used the tax assessor site, but I've heard a lot of people talk about it. I was able to look up the deed for the property and in it, it states that the the son and his wife "to have and to hold the premises herein granted unto the parties of the second part, their heirs and assigns forever." It uses the word "forever" 3 times in the deed basically stating that they hold it forever. Is it possible to list in an estate that a property can never be sold or is that just a terminology that I've never seen? Can someone really be blocked from selling their property that has been handed to them by their deceased parents even if they don't want to keep it or am I crazy?!