The grass is ridiculously long. The mailbox is stuffed to the gills and overflowing. There's never any cars parked in the driveway.

All indicators of an abandoned property.

You look at it and can see the potential of the site, and would love to work directly with the owners to make a deal happen. But how do you go about locating the owners? There's the challenge.

The most obvious place to start looking is the Title. If you already subscribe to a data platform, quite often the owner's details are extracted from Titles information and are available in the platform.

However, one grumble I hear a lot from students in Victoria and SA is that because of privacy laws, they can't access owner information as easily as students in other states can.

At this point I think it's relevant to note that most data platforms include a clause in their terms and conditions which essentially says any owner details shared are for informational purposes only and cannot be used for direct marketing purposes. Which basically puts everybody in the same position - you might be able to see that information more easily in some states, but you're not allowed to use it.

In which case, no matter where you're based, if you're serious about contacting the owner of a specific property, then it's worth spending a few dollars and buying the title information from the government. Check the fine print for your state to see if there are any restrictions on how you use that information though.

Now you have the Title information, there's another problem. Quite often it's no help! It will show the address of the owner at the time the property was last transferred.

Which is great if the owner still lives there, but often they don't. For example, what if the address shown is the abandoned property you're interested in?

Neighbours

You might be surprised to find just how much you can learn from neighbours. While some suburbs aren't very friendly, there are plenty where people at least know their immediate neighbours enough to have had the occasional chat with them.

It can be very worthwhile to open up a conversation with the neighbours, particularly if you can do it in a casual way. Comment on the overgrown grass, for example.

The neighbour may not be able to give you contact details (and would probably feel uncomfortable doing so), they might give you clues as to what circumstances led to the house becoming abandoned, which help direct your search.

Then you have to use those clues to play detective!

Electoral Rolls

The electoral commission websites aren't going to help you much if you just have a name and are trying to find where someone lives (obviously for privacy reasons), but if you have a rough idea they can be helpful.

As an example, say you've found out the owner's name on Title, and a neighbour mentioned the owner is now living with their daughter over on Third Street. Assuming they've updated their electoral enrollment, you can find out the street number.

It's a bit threadbare, but it might be of help.

Rates Search

Depending on where you live, this might be one for a lawyer to follow up on. As part of a property transaction, a lawyer will get a range of notices issued from various authorities to verify outstanding balances, average costs and so on.

Those notices also contain information about the owner. Again, this is not something you'd want to do unless you're very serious about the site, because it's going to cost you some dollars.

Still, it is a way to verify the last known contact address for the owner.

White Pages

Since those clunky big phone books disappeared from our doorsteps, people tend to forget about the White Pages. And yet it's a treasure trove of information!

Maybe all the young people nowadays have a mobile phone rather than a landline, but there are plenty of elderly people who still stick with them. And those numbers are listed in the White Pages, along with an address.

Again, this one's a bit of a long shot, but if you have the owner's name it's still worth a look, just in case.

Real Estate Agents

Make time to chat with local real estate agents. Try and target the agent who's been in the local office the longest. You might be surprised to find out how much they know about the property and owner.

It's even possible they might have already been approached about the property, if it's a case of the current owner having passed away and the kids are now deciding what to do about the property.

Now, I've put this one at the bottom of the article because there's a risk the agent might end up listing the property and there goes your advantage in getting to the owners before anyone else does.

Still, if the agent does get the listing there may still be an opportunity for you to negotiate and close the deal without the agent going through the hassle of listing it, which is still to your advantage.

Either way, this probably isn't the first avenue of enquiry I'd suggest!

The bottom line is that trying to find the owner of an abandoned property isn't a simple and obvious process. It's much more like a treasure hunt, crossed with trying to find a needle in a haystack.

But if you have a target property that you really think has potential, it can definitely be worth putting in some time and dollars to track down the owner. Good luck!