Skip tracing: find phones & emails from an address

Skip tracing turns a property/mailing address into the owner's contact info. The direction is the key thing to understand: address in → phone & email out. You give it a name and an address; it returns the owner's phone number(s) and email so you can call or text them.

When to use it

The classic case: an absentee or out-of-state owner you can mail but can't reach. You have their property address from public records; you want a phone for the Dialer or a cell for SMS. Skip-trace bridges that gap.

How to run a trace

• One contact: open the contact's detail view and click 🔍 Skip Trace.
• In bulk: go to CRM → Buyers or Sellers, select the contacts with the row checkboxes, and click Skip trace… in the bulk action bar.

A Confirm skip trace window shows how many credits the run will cost. Click Trace to go. Results append to each contact automatically — no copy-paste.

Skip-trace credits

Skip-trace runs on their own credit balance, separate from your monthly plan credits:

• 1 credit = 1 record submitted, billed at upload (whether or not a hit comes back).
• Credits never expire, and larger packs come at a volume discount.
• Buy them under Settings → Billing → Buy skip-trace credits — packs run from $12 up to $350.
• If you run out mid-batch, tracing pauses; top up and re-run the rest.

DNC & litigator scrub (optional add-on)

The confirm window has an "Also run a DNC & litigator scrub" checkbox. When it's on, every phone number on the traced contacts (existing numbers + newly found ones) is checked against the Federal Do Not Call registry, state DNC lists, and known TCPA-litigator databases.

• Cost: 1 skip-trace credit per phone checked (most contacts carry 1–3 numbers). Charged when the trace completes; if your balance runs short, the scrub is skipped and the trace itself is unaffected.
• Litigator flags (⚖️, red): serial TCPA plaintiffs who bait cold outreach into lawsuits. These numbers are blocked from texting and skipped by auto-dialing automatically — a contact with a clean backup number stays reachable on that number. You can still call one manually from the contact card if you have a reason to.
• DNC flags (⛔, orange): the number is on a Do Not Call registry. This is a warning, not a block — DNC governs cold telemarketing calls, and established-business-relationship or prior-consent calls can be fine. The chip's tooltip shows which lists matched.
• Flags appear as chips next to each phone number on the contact card and in the Dialer. A clean scrub shows a green "✓ DNC & litigator scrub: clean" line so you know it ran.

The same option appears on Property Records imports (Basic and Full) when the auto skip-trace add-on is checked. And for contacts that already have phone numbers (CSV imports, past traces), you can scrub without re-tracing: select them in the CRM and click ⛔ DNC scrub… in the bulk action bar — same 1 credit per phone, exact cost shown before you confirm. The full playbook lives in the DNC & litigator scrubbing lesson.

What's next

Got numbers? Put them to work in the Cold-call workflow with the dialer.