Vacant property lists: how vacancy is detected

How vacancy is detected

Vacancy is inferred, not recorded. No county or federal file lists empty houses by address. A vacant property list is a set of homes where some signal suggests nobody lives there, joined to the owner's mailing address from county assessor records. The quality of the list is the quality of the signal.

The signal most lists rely on comes from the Postal Service. Per HUD's description of the USPS vacancy data, vacant addresses are ones that delivery staff on urban routes have identified as not collecting their mail for 90 days or longer. No-stat addresses include rural route addresses vacant for 90 days or longer, homes and businesses under construction and not yet occupied, and urban addresses a carrier judges unlikely to be active for some time. So in rural areas, the vacancy you want sits under the no-stat flag. HUD also notes that USPS records only whether an address is occupied, not why it is empty. Address-quality software carries both flags record by record in the USPS Delivery Point Validation fields, as address-quality documentation describes.

Three other signals feed lists. City registries cover owners who registered under a local ordinance. Returned mail from a test mailing shows who is not collecting. Utility shutoffs and usage drops can point to vacancy, but a vendor that claims utility data rarely shows you the source, so ask.

What each signal means and where it fails

Pick the signal that matches your tolerance for false positives. The Center for Community Progress, which advises cities on vacant property, tells users to cross-check USPS data against field observation before drawing conclusions. It also notes that labeling varies between post offices.

Signal	What it means	Weakness
USPS vacant indicator	Urban route address, mail not collected 90 days or longer	Seasonal homes, long trips and care-facility stays look the same as abandonment
USPS no-stat indicator	Rural vacancy, unoccupied new construction, or inactive urban address	Mixes new builds that were never lived in with long-term vacant homes
City vacant registry	Owner or city declared the building vacant	Only exists where an ordinance exists; lags actual vacancy
Returned mail from a test mailing	Mail came back undeliverable or unclaimed	Costs a mailing; one return does not prove a pattern
Utility usage or shutoff	Service off or usage fell for six months or more	Source rarely disclosed; Community Progress says such properties are "often vacant," not always
Absentee owner plus mail return	Owner lives elsewhere and mail bounces	A proxy that needs two data sources to agree

Absentee status alone is not vacancy. See the absentee owner list page for how that signal is built.

City registries

Some cities require owners to register vacant buildings. Cleveland, for example, under Ordinance 3106 from February 2024, requires registration of all vacant properties through an online portal. Owners give ownership and lienholder details and name a local agent if they live outside the Cuyahoga County area. The annual fee is $70 per unit for one to three dwelling units and $1,000 for commercial and industrial structures, including buildings of four or more units, per the City of Cleveland. The page does not say whether the registry is public.

Registries are accurate about what they cover and silent about everything else. Check the city's open data portal or ask the code enforcement office whether the registry is published.

Filters that matter

Vacant lists are short. Filters decide whether the list is usable or just noisy.

Filter	Why it helps
Months flagged vacant	A longer flag rules out a vacation or a short renovation; ask the vendor how many months it can show
Owner mailing state	Out-of-state owners cannot check the house, so flagged homes stay empty longer
Equity	Estimated from last sale price and recorded mortgages; high equity gives the owner room to accept a discount
Tax delinquent overlap	A vacant home with unpaid taxes is the strongest combined distress signal; see the tax delinquent list
Property type	Drop vacant land and condos if you want houses
Owner type	Individuals and trusts respond; banks and government owners do not
Pre-foreclosure or probate overlap	Explains why the house is empty; see the pre-foreclosure list and probate leads list

What a record contains

A usable record has the property address, the vacancy signal and its source, the date the signal was set, owner name as it appears on the deed, owner mailing address, property type, last sale date, estimated equity, and a tax status flag. Phone and email are optional appends. The owner mailing address is the contact, because the property address has no one to receive mail.

What to check before paying

Ask four things before you buy.

1. Signal source. Is vacancy from USPS data, a registry, utilities, or a mix? "Other signals" is not an answer.
2. Signal date. A flag that is a year old is a coin flip. Ask for the date per record.
3. Seasonal and new construction handling. Ask whether second homes in resort areas and no-stat new builds are removed.
4. A sample. Request 25 records in your own zip codes, drive past five, and confirm the owner on the county site.

Count what you can rely on. The absentee owner counts show how many owners sit outside the property address in each state, which bounds the pool where a vacant flag is most likely to be real.

Price benchmarks

This is a published price from a reseller page checked on 10/10/2026, not our price. The page is undated. It lists vacant property leads at $0.10 per lead with skip tracing included, and says vacancy is based on "USPS vacancy data, utility data, and other signals." It does not say how those signals are weighted.

Worked example: 2,000 records at $0.10 is $200. Postage to all 2,000 owners costs more than the list, so the false positive rate matters more than the list price.

Who uses it and how

Investors mail the owners of flagged homes and ask one question: do you want to sell. Code enforcement contractors use registry and no-stat lists to find boarding, cleanup and securing work. Property managers offer care of the house to out-of-area owners. Agents use the list to find owners who may list but have not. See direct mail prospecting for the sequence and door knocking prospecting for the drive-by check that confirms a flag. The homeowner list page covers the occupied side of the market.

Compliance notes

The owner's mailing address is the contact path, and mail to it is not restricted by the Do Not Call rules. Calls are different. Anyone calling owners must scrub against the National Do Not Call Registry and refresh the scrub at least every 31 days, per the FTC telemarketer Q&A. Do not enter a property you do not own, and do not post notices on a door in a way a city ordinance bars.

More lists are in the lists hub.

Next step

Send the zip codes you work to get counts and compare the absentee pool to what a vendor shows as vacant.

Questions people ask

Q01Is a city vacant registry a complete list?

No. A registry covers only owners who registered under a local ordinance, and only in cities that have one. Owners who ignore the rule never appear, and the list lags actual vacancy. Use it to confirm a flag, not as the whole universe.

Q02Can I get the USPS vacant data for free?

Not by address. HUD receives quarterly aggregate vacancy and no-stat counts from USPS and can share them only with registered government and nonprofit users. USPS licenses address-level data to commercial firms, so a buyer gets the flag through a list provider.

Q03Why do resort towns show so many vacant flags?

Second homes sit empty for months, so carriers mark them vacant. HUD notes that vacation and resort areas have very high rates of vacant addresses. In those markets, expect more false positives and test a small mailing before a full campaign.

Q04Does a vacant flag mean the owner wants to sell?

No. A flag only says mail is not being collected. The owner may be deployed, in a care facility, renovating, or running a seasonal home. Treat the flag as a reason to send a letter, then let the reply decide.

Q05How do vacant lists differ from absentee owner lists?

An absentee list uses a mismatch between property and owner mailing addresses. A vacant list uses evidence that no one is collecting mail. The two overlap, and the overlap, an absentee owner with a vacant flag, is the stronger lead.

Sources

1. HUD USER: USPS vacancy datahuduser.gov
2. Address-quality documentation of the USPS DPV vacant and no-stat indicators (secondary description of USPS DPV fields)accuzip.com
3. Center for Community Progress: finding vacant and abandoned propertiescommunityprogress.org
4. City of Cleveland: vacant property registrationclevelandohio.gov
5. Published vendor pricing page, vacant property lists (checked 10/10/2026)tracerfy.com
6. FTC: Q&A for telemarketers about DNC provisions in the TSRftc.gov