Homeowner lists: how they are built and what to check

How the list is built

A homeowner list starts at the county assessor. Each parcel record holds the owner of record, the situs address (where the property sits), and the mailing address (where the tax bill goes). The list is built in five steps.

1. Pull the parcel file for each county and keep residential property types.
2. Flag a parcel owner-occupied when the situs address equals the mailing address after standardization.
3. Match the owner name and address to a national consumer file to add phone numbers, emails and age.
4. Check each phone against carrier line-type data to mark it mobile, landline or VoIP.
5. Scrub the phones against the National Do Not Call Registry and mark each one clear or listed.

The owner-occupied flag is an inference. The assessor does not record who lives in the house. Where a county publishes a homestead exemption, that is a stronger signal, and some counties publish their parcel files openly, as Cook County does in its Assessor Parcel Universe. The absentee owner list page covers the other side of the same address test.

The Census Bureau reports a national homeownership rate of 65.0% for the second quarter of 2026, released 07/28/2026. That figure counts households. A parcel list counts deeds, so the two will not match exactly.

Filters that matter

Filters turn a county file into a list a campaign can use. Most come straight from assessor fields. Equity is the exception: it is estimated from the last sale, the recorded mortgage and a current value model.

Filter	Source field	Why it is used
Year built	Assessor	Roof, HVAC and window age proxy
Assessed value	Assessor	Budget fit; skews to the tax roll, not market
Equity band	Sale, mortgage, value model	Refinance, home equity and sell-side offers
Tenure (years owned)	Recorded deed date	Long tenure means equity and older systems
Square footage	Assessor	Sizing for solar, HVAC and roofing quotes
Pool	Assessor feature flag	Pool service, safety and insurance offers
Zip or radius	Situs address	Service area and route planning
Owner age	Consumer file	Senior services, Medicare, downsizing

Age and any other household field come from the consumer file, not the deed. Treat them as modeled. For the equity filter in depth, see the high equity homeowner list page.

What a record contains

A usable record carries these fields.

• Owner name as on the deed, and the standardized mailing address, which is also the property address for an owner-occupied parcel
• Property type, year built, square footage, assessed value, last sale date and price
• Estimated equity band and years owned
• One or more phone numbers, each with line type (mobile, landline, VoIP) and a Do Not Call flag
• An email address where the consumer file has one
• Owner age band where available

Assessor files carry no phone or email. Those fields exist only for records that matched the consumer file, so fill rates always sit below 100%.

What the live counts show

The homeowner counts page shows rounded totals by state. Each state row reports total owner-occupied records, how many have a mailable address, a mobile, an email, and a mobile that is clear of the Do Not Call Registry. The September 2026 Wyoming figures show how fast coverage falls at each step.

Wyoming, 09/2026	Records	Share of total
Total owner-occupied	117,000	100%
Mailable address	114,000	97.4%
With email	49,300	42.1%
With a mobile	31,200	26.7%
Mobile and DNC clear	10,000	8.5%

Every count is a floor. The other states scanned so far show the same shape, so a mail campaign reaches nearly everyone while a text or call campaign reaches a fraction. See the Wyoming homeowner counts for the full state view, or the markets pages for a metro-level read.

What to check before paying

Run these four checks on any vendor, including this one.

Check	What to ask	Red flag
Owner-occupied definition	Is it situs equals mailing, a homestead flag, or a modeled score?	The vendor cannot say
Assessor vintage	What is the county file date, and how often is it refreshed?	No date, or older than the last roll
Phone match rate and line type	What share of records have a phone, and what share are mobile?	One blended "match rate" with no line type
DNC flag	When was the registry last applied, and is it per number?	No scrub date

Then ask for 25 sample records from your own zips and look up three on the county site. If the owner names or mailing addresses differ from the assessor, the file is stale.

The FTC states that sellers must synchronize their lists with the registry at least every 31 days. A scrub the vendor ran two months ago does not cover your calls today. For mail at presorted First-Class or USPS Marketing Mail prices, USPS requires each address to be updated within 95 days before the mailing date, and NCOALink is an approved method. See the Move Update standard.

Price benchmarks

These are published ranges from three third-party list resellers, checked on 10/10/2026. They are vendor-reported, the pages show no review dates, and they exclude minimums and shipping. Confirm current terms before budgeting.

Reseller page	Product	Published range per record
A	Homeowner, mailing only	$0.025
A	Homeowner, with email or phone	$0.03
B	New homeowner, 1 to 5,000 records	$0.075
B	New homeowner, 25,001 or more	$0.055
C	Homeowner database	$0.02

Reseller B sets a $125.00 minimum purchase. Reseller A says prepaid plans lower its rate to as low as $0.015.

Worked example, 20,000 records:

• Reseller A, mailing only: 20,000 x $0.025 = $500
• Reseller A, with phone or email: 20,000 x $0.03 = $600
• Reseller B, new homeowners (15,001 to 25,000 tier): 20,000 x $0.060 = $1,200

The cheapest lists are the broad ones. Narrower filters, recency and verified mobiles cost more, and a low per-record price says nothing about the fill rate behind it.

Who uses it and how

User	Filters they lean on	Channel
Solar installers	Single family, owned 5+ years, home value band	Mail, then door knock
Roofers	Year built, tenure, square footage	Mail and door knock
HVAC contractors	Year built, square footage	Mail, then mobile follow-up
Insurance agents	Home value, owner age, tenure	Mail and phone, DNC scrubbed
Listing agents farming	Zip or radius, tenure, equity band	Mail, repeated monthly

Agents farming a neighborhood use the zip or radius filter and mail the same owners on a schedule. Contractors pair the year-built filter with a route so crews can knock on doors in clusters. The sequence for either channel is in direct mail prospecting and door knocking prospecting.

A homeowner list is the base layer. Add a signal and it becomes a motivated list: pre-foreclosure, tax delinquent and vacant property lists all start from the same parcel file. The lists hub shows the full set.

Next step

Use get counts to see how many owner-occupied records, mobiles and DNC-clear mobiles exist for your zips before you buy anything.

Questions people ask

Q01What is the difference between a homeowner list and an absentee owner list?

A homeowner list keeps parcels where the owner lives at the property. An absentee owner list keeps the opposite, where the tax bill goes somewhere else. Both come from the same assessor file, split on one address comparison.

Q02Can I get a list of homeowners by zip code?

Yes. Assessor records carry the situs zip on every parcel, so a zip filter is a plain selection. Radius searches work the same way from a center point. The count for a zip is exact only after you apply your other filters.

Q03Is owner-occupied the same as a homestead exemption?

No. Owner-occupied on most lists means the property address matches the tax bill address. A homestead exemption is a tax break the owner applied for on a primary residence. Where the county publishes it, ask the vendor to use it as the flag.

Q04How do I spot-check a homeowner list sample?

Pick three records from your own zips and look each parcel up on the county assessor or treasurer site. The owner name and mailing address should match the current roll. A mismatch on any of the three means the file predates the last roll.

Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, Housing Vacancies and Homeownership (CPS/HVS), current quarterly report (65.0% homeownership rate, Q2 2026, released 07/28/2026)census.gov
2. FTC, Q&A for telemarketers about the DNC provisions of the TSR (31-day synchronization, fee after five area codes)ftc.gov
3. USPS DMM 602, Move Update standard (Address updated within 95 days before mailing)pe.usps.com
4. Cook County Open Data, Assessor Parcel Universe (example of a county publishing parcel records)datacatalog.cookcountyil.gov
5. Published price page, homeowner list reseller A (per record, list only and with phone or email) (vendor-reported)datazapp.com
6. Published price page, direct mail list reseller B (new homeowner tiers) (vendor-reported)directmail.com
7. Published price page, homeowner list reseller C (per record, 60 million homeowner database) (vendor-reported)dmdatasource.com