Getting "Assessor's Role" for Virginia Counties--Suggestions?

[Joshua Beall]

Hi All,

I'm looking to pick up some properties in VA, and I'm hoping to start with vacant land (yes, I know land investing is a less common strategy).

I've been trying to find some good list sources, so I can market to people who own land in my target counties (Frederick, Clarke, Shenandoah, Warren, Fauquier, Rappahannock, Loudoun). What I've found so far is that it seems to be a bit of a challenge to locate these lists, since most list providers focus on improved property. For instance, ListSource.com says it has 0 matches when I look for vacant land in Clarke County!

So, I thought I'd try another tactic: just get the "assessor's role" (exhaustive list of all properties in the tax assessor's records). I know it doesn't have as much information, but it will show the value of the land vs the improvements, and I could infer if it's an absentee owner by checking the ZIP code. Furthermore, I thought that this would be public information, since I'm only asking for what is freely available on the web already--except I'm asking for a single giant spreadsheet, instead of just a handful of records at a time (on the web, most assessor's allow you to search, but you can only get a few dozen results at at time).

However, so far I haven't had any luck with getting this information from the assessor's offices. It occurred to me there might be a third party service that can provide the "assessor's role." Any VA investors know of such a service? Or do you know the secret handshake to get the assessor's office to work with you? ;-)

  -Josh