Upload the spreadsheet without reformatting it
A wholesale list arrives from a county export, a list provider or your own driving for dollars, and every source labels its columns its own way. Locate Next reads a CSV or Excel owner file as it comes. It lines up your columns with the fields a search uses and asks you to settle the ambiguous ones, such as a “Mail Address” column that could be either the owner’s mailing address or the street. Each row needs a property address, or else the parcel number, county, state, the owner’s mailing address and the owner name. It merges duplicate properties and names the rows it cannot search, so the problem rows surface before anything runs. The maximum cost appears before any search, nothing runs until you start it, and spending caps sit behind the run.
Get numbers for the owners, not just for the address
One property address can return the owner, a relative, a tenant and a namesake. The charge follows the same idea: a search qualifies, at $0.17 per qualifying search, when a single returned person carries an owner name from your file along with a well formed phone or email. It settles at $0 when nothing comes back, when the search fails, when a result from the last 30 days is reused, when two returned people share the owner name, and when no phone or email is usable. Well formed is not the same as reachable. Locate Next publishes no match rate, so test it on owners you have already confirmed.
Keep your own columns on the way to the CRM
Choose an export format, or save a CRM template and pick the exact columns you want, including DNC results and emails. Your original columns, record IDs and custom columns stay with each contact, and before you download you see the real header row and the first rows of the file. To check a CRM file before you import it, the free CRM CSV checker runs in your browser now. If the list grows every week, automations search only the new rows, offer a dry run first, and apply per-run and daily limits.
A checklist for a big list
This holds whichever tool you pick.
- Merge duplicates first. The same property often appears more than once, spelled differently. Merge before you pay for it. Locate Next merges duplicate properties, and rows behind one search are billed once between them.
- Split out the company owners. Rows owned by an LLC, a corporation or a trust need the state filing before any person search. A filing, a manager or a registered agent does not prove who owns the company or the parcel. Locate Next holds company owners for review and searches nobody until you confirm the company.
- Know what the charge attaches to. Per record, per match, per qualifying search or per credit are four different bills. Compare cost per usable contact rather than the headline rate; the arithmetic is in skip tracing cost per record.
- Look at Do Not Call status before outreach. Locate Next runs its check in Export against the DNC dataset currently active on this site. The check compares phone numbers with the dataset currently active on this site. It does not promise a live connection to government records, identify the owner of a number, or establish consent to contact someone. DNC checks are included at no extra charge. The calling and texting rules are in section 4 below.
- Export a file that keeps your columns. Your record ID, list source and notes should survive the round trip.
- Test before the full run. Trace 50 to 500 owners you have already confirmed and count how many came back as the right person.
Which bulk tool fits a wholesaler
| What you need | Fits better | What its page showed on October 24, 2026 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| To build the list and trace it in one place | PropStream | Essentials $99 a month with tracing at 12 cents a contact; Pro and Elite fold tracing into the plan | [4] |
| Driving for dollars and mail | DealMachine | A starting price printed as both $99 and $119 a month; one credit per contact revealed | [5], [6] |
| The lowest published rate per match | Skipmatch, REISkip | Skipmatch 3 cents a matched record; REISkip 15 cents a match, marked introductory | [7], [8] |
| An API at very high volume | BatchData | From $2,000 a month for up to 100,000 traces, with API access on every tier | [9] |
| To trace a file you already have, with company review | Locate Next | $0.17 per qualifying search, prepaid, no monthly plan | [10] |
The full by-need table is in how to choose a skip tracing service.
Where Locate Next fits a wholesaler
It fits wholesalers and cash buyers who already hold an owner file, want it uploaded as it comes, need company owners reviewed before any person is searched, and want a CRM file that still carries their own columns.
It does not fit wholesalers who still have to build a list or drive for dollars, where PropStream or DealMachine are the shape of tool; teams that need an API at very high volume, where BatchData’s tiers are built for it; or buyers for whom the lowest rate per match settles the question, where Skipmatch and REISkip print lower rates. Access opens in stages.
1. The list is the county row
Bring a file you already have, or build one from the county. The skip tracing guide starts from the owner name, the property address, and the mailing address. The absentee owner checker marks rows whose mailing address differs from the property address, plus out-of-state mail, PO boxes, companies, trusts, estates, and a homestead flag when your file has that column. A flag is a sort. It is not a statement that someone does not live at the house.
2. Pick the person, not the first number
One address can return several people. What a match proves says the provider linked a name to the address. The deed still names the owner. The home page says Locate Next flags the person whose name matches the owner on your list, shows everyone else and how they are connected, and exports only the people you pick.
3. When the grantee ends in LLC
Read the filing for that state. Florida prints member, manager, and authorized representative, and says a manager may not be a member. Delaware's free search prints the agent and the file number, not members. A role is not a share. The LLC owner lookup page says state filings list the people a company named and do not prove who owns or controls the company. You confirm the company before anyone named in the filing is searched. The deed-first version of that lookup is the person behind an LLC cash buyer.
4. Calls and texts have their own pages
The law page quotes the FTC's description of Do Not Call coverage: campaigns to sell goods or services through interstate phone calls, plus the exceptions the FTC lists. It also quotes 47 CFR 64.1200 on autodialed and prerecorded calls, and it points at paragraph (a)(9) for the place the rule defines "call" to include a text. It does not decide whether your offer to buy is one of those campaigns. That decision is not made on this page.
5. Keep the columns from collapsing
Property address, tax mailing address, and a contact address are three fields. Your record ID stays on the row. The CRM CSV checker looks for import problems in the browser before a CRM sees the file. CRM export is the product description of that file. Bulk skip tracing is the list workflow. This wholesaler path is one entry in skip tracing uses. Once the owner of record is confirmed, how to find a property owner's phone number is the contact step. Dated notes that quote other companies' own pages are on the comparison hub.
Common questions
What is skip tracing in wholesaling?
Adding a reviewed phone or email to an owner row you already have, so you can decide whether to reach that person about the property. The deed comes first. The phone comes after the name matches.
Why do results name a relative?
The provider linked more than one person to the address. Compare each name with the grantee and the mailing address. Export the person you pick, not the first row.
Can I text every number on a skip traced list?
The law page quotes the FCC rule's consent paragraphs and the Duguid holding on autodialers. It does not clear a text campaign. Read those sections and ask counsel about the messages you want to send.
Sources
- FTC, Q&A on the Do Not Call provisions of the Telemarketing Sales Rule. Checked October 22, 2026.
- 47 CFR 64.1200. Checked October 22, 2026.
- Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, decided April 1, 2021. Slip opinion checked October 22, 2026.
- PropStream, pricing. Read October 24, 2026.
- DealMachine, pricing. Read October 24, 2026.
- DealMachine, how DealMachine pricing works, dated July 30, 2026. Read October 24, 2026.
- Skipmatch, pricing. Read October 24, 2026.
- REISkip, pricing. Read October 24, 2026.
- BatchData, pricing. Read October 24, 2026.
- Locate Next, pricing and the qualifying-search rule. Read October 24, 2026.
This page is general information, not legal advice.