Trying to get tax delinquent list from the county

[Kevin Farrell]

I want to start a mail campaign to contact property owners that are on the delinquent tax list in my county. I am in Indiana and I spoke to the treasurer's office on the phone. The nice lady said "I don't think we can provide that kind of information." I said please ask someone. She came back to the phone and told me to email someone else in her office. I sent the email. The reply came back right away.

I am not able to issue you any type of delinquent tax file. At the county level we are only allowed to provide Mortgage Companies with files to help with escrow accounts. The files are not to be used for commercial use and if they are then that entity will be fined.

If you have any further questions please let me know.

Thank you,

I suspect that the data is still available to the public, but someone in this office is the gatekeeper who will resist these requests. Does this vary by county  in some states?

Any advice on how to approach this office for the list that I want will be appreciated.

[Seth Williams]

Hi @Kevin Farrell - it's awesome to see you documenting your experience here. After reading what you've experienced so far, I'll share a few thoughts that come to mind...

• If you're looking specifically for a delinquent tax list (not the list of properties already going to auction, but the owners who are currently delinquent and in danger of losing their property), the county is the best place to get this information. Their data will be more current than any other third party data service, because you're getting it directly from the source, with no time gap. As you've already discovered though... some counties (though not all) can be a MAJOR hassle to deal with, and the data can be tricky to sort. This is an important consideration to be aware of, because not everyone has the patience to deal with this. If you can find a handful of counties in an ideal market who will provide the right list, in the right format, for a decent price - I think it's totally worth the effort (because it will ultimately result in A LOT of great deals if you use the data appropriately). These counties are definitely out there, but when you're starting from scratch, it usually takes a bit of time and patience to find them.
• AgentPro247 and ReboGateway can provide tax delinquent data in some (but definitely not all) areas. I've found both services to be good at some aspects of list-pulling (depending on what types of property owners you're looking for, and in which markets you're looking), but they're not a perfect fit in every situation. Their delinquent tax data seems to be fairly reliable in the more populated counties (like Southern California), but in many of the other areas I've tried... this particular filtering option either isn't available, or it isn't reliable (nothing like getting it directly from the county).
• Delinquent tax lists from the county can be very powerful, but they're not the only way to find great deals. I've found this type of list to be a great for finding as many deals as possible without spending thousands of dollars just on mail... but if you have a bigger budget and you're willing to spend more money on data and direct mail, it is possible to get your lists with much less hassle. ListSource (owned by CoreLogic) is one option... they don't offer delinquent tax data, or any way to verify how current the data is in each county, but if you don't care about either of those things - it's a solid platform that many people use with success. RealQuest (also owned by CoreLogic) is another option, and it does allow you to see how current the data is before pulling a list (a very nice feature), but it requires a 12 month commitment, and the cost of the subscription (which isn't cheap) doesn't include the per-lead cost of generating each new list. From what I could see, RealQuest seemed to be a solid option for those who are doing a great deal of volume, and ListSource was better for those who were just doing a few hundred mailers at a time.

 I spent several weeks reviewing AgentPro247, Melissa Data, ReboGateway, RealQuest and ListSource - and it shows how they each stack up against each other. As you might expect, each of them seems to excel in some areas, and not so much in others.

If you go with a more general type of direct mail campaign (to non-delinquent owners), it may take more mailers to find the truly motivated sellers (i.e. - people willing to accept a laughably low offer) because you'll have to sift through more of the "general population" of property owners to find the motivated ones, but they're definitely out there. In some ways, mailing ONLY to delinquent tax owners will actually cause you to ignore some of the legitimately motivated sellers out there (because not every motivated seller is necessarily delinquent). In my experience, the delinquent tax list has been a very effective way of spending less money to reach a more concentrated list of motivated sellers, but it's certainly not the only way to get the job done.