Foreclosure and lis pendens
Clerk of Courts. A lender or lienholder has started taking the property, and the clock is running.
Owner signals · Public records
Your next listing, before it’s a listing.
LeadBuoy watches 16 owner signals across court filings, liens, the tax roll, postal data, and the MLS, then confirms who actually owns the property — so every name on your list is someone who can sell.
No shared lead pool. The leads in your account are yours alone.
New filing
Filed 2 days ago
5555 Southwest Main Street
Owner of record since 2011 · Sample record
Plaintiff
Bank / lender
Just value
$612,400
Evidence
3 sources agree
16 owner signals
Court filings, liens, tax roll, postal data, and the MLS.
Five years of history
Open matters backfilled, then tracked daily.
Person-level leads
One owner, all their cases and properties in one place.
iPhone and browser
Face ID on the phone, full workspace on desktop and iPad.
How it works
From a public record to a conversation
Every lead follows the same four steps, whatever the signal behind it, and every step is recorded so you can see why a name reached your list.
01
A record changes
16 signals are checked daily. A new foreclosure case, a divorce petition, a recorded lien, a listing that expired. Each signal has its own qualifying rules, and anything that fails them drops out.
02
The owner is confirmed
The source record, the recorded instrument, and the Property Appraiser have to agree on the same person before a lead exists. Anything contradictory is held back, not guessed.
03
Contact details are added
Phone, email, and mailing address are appended once per person, with the source and the date it was checked shown alongside.
04
You make first contact
Call a scrubbed number, send an email, or send a postcard. Each touch, note, and status change is logged against the person so nothing is repeated or missed.
Signals
16 ways to find motivated sellers
Most agents chase one signal: foreclosure. A divorce petition, an expired listing, an inherited property, or a lien nobody is paying down all point to the same thing. An owner with a reason to sell, and no agent yet. LeadBuoy watches all 16.
Court filings
Six dockets, read daily
Auction notice
Clerk of Courts. A sale date is set. The last window in which listing is still a better outcome.
Divorce
Clerk of Courts. A dissolution petition where the couple holds a home together and one of them will leave it.
Probate
Clerk of Courts. An estate opens and an heir inherits a property they now have to decide about.
Bankruptcy
Federal court records. A filing that puts the mortgage in front of a trustee. Often reached through the debtor's attorney rather than direct.
Eviction
Clerk of Courts. A landlord in a dispute over a property they may have finished wanting.
Liens and taxes
Four records against the parcel
Tax delinquency
County Tax Collector. Unpaid property tax, with the certificate and tax-deed status behind it.
Code enforcement and municipal liens
City and county code records. Fines accumulating on a property nobody is keeping up.
HOA liens
Official Records. An association claim recorded against the parcel, often long before a lender acts.
Exemption changes
Tax roll. A homestead or senior exemption added or dropped, which usually means someone moved, died, or has decided to stay put.
Ownership and equity
Who holds it, and how loosely
High equity
Assessed value against the original recorded mortgage. An estimate, and labeled as one. The record shows what was borrowed, not what is left.
Absentee owner
Tax roll. The mailing address on the record is not the property. Nobody is living in what they own.
Vacancy
Postal delivery data. Mail has stopped arriving at the property, which usually precedes everything else.
Cash buyer
Official Records. A recent purchase with no mortgage recorded against it. The buyer side of your book, not the seller side.
Listing and case activity
Changes on something already moving
Expired listing
MLS. A listing that came off the market unsold, with the price history that explains why.
Case activity
Clerk of Courts. A notice of appearance or docket change on a case you already have, filtered to the homeowner's own filings.
Coverage depends on what each county publishes and how often. Every lead tells you which signal found it and when that source was last read, so you always know how fresh your list is.
Features
Built for the way a listing agent actually works
No dashboards to configure and no scoring you cannot explain. A short list, the reason it is short, and the tools to work it.
Evidence on every lead
Open any lead and see the case, the recorded filing, and the ownership record that produced it, with the matching rule that was applied.
Why this lead appeared
Filters that match your book
Narrow by signal: foreclosure, divorce, probate, liens, equity. Then by plaintiff category, property type, assessed value, and city, and save the view you work from.
Divorce$500K+Single family
One person, every property
An owner who shows up on three signals at once appears once, not three times. Co-defendants stay separate, so two agents never work the same person by accident.
3 properties · 2 signals
Campaigns for follow-up
Enroll a lead in a multi-step sequence of emails, postcards, and call reminders. Replies pause the sequence, quiet hours are respected, and opt-outs are permanent.
Email→Wait 3d→Postcard→Call task
A record of every touch
Called, emailed, mailed, dismissed, or needs follow-up, with notes, timestamps, and the outcome, ready for your next conversation.
CalledFollow upDismissed
Fresh, and honest about it
Each source shows when it was last read. If a feed is stale or a record has lapsed, the lead is held rather than shown as current.
Clerk records read 4 hours ago
For agents
The listing conversation nobody else is having yet
A lis pendens filing is public the day it is recorded, but by the time it reaches a mailing list the owner has already heard from a dozen investors. The same is true of a divorce petition, a probate opening, and a lien. Reaching them first, with a real option, is the whole product.
Open the app, not a spreadsheet
New leads since your last visit sit at the top, already filtered to the signals and price bands you work.
Know the situation before you dial
Which signal fired, who filed, how long they have owned, what the property is worth, and whether there is equity to protect.
Follow up without keeping a list in your head
A campaign keeps the sequence moving between calls, and stops the moment the owner replies.
Lis pendens
5555 Southwest Main Street
Divorce filing
1200 North Center Avenue
Expired listing · 2 properties
480 East Park Road
Standards
Rescue, not predation
Most of these owners are going through something difficult, and none of them asked to be on a list. LeadBuoy is built so the first contact they get from you is a useful one — which is also the reason it works.
You have something to say
You reach an owner while they still have options, and you can say plainly why you called and what you saw. That is a different conversation from the twelfth investor postcard.
No rules to keep in your head
Numbers you should not be calling are screened out before a Call button ever appears, so the mistake cannot happen in the first place. If screening data is missing or out of date, the product holds the lead rather than guessing. You work your list; the product keeps you inside the lines.
The relationship stays yours
Nothing you work is resold, shared, or handed to another agent. Notes, history, and outcomes stay in your account, so the owner who was not ready in March is still your lead in September.
See it before you decide
Twenty minutes on a call. We will show you how a lead is built, what the evidence behind it looks like, and how the product handles follow-up. Bring your questions about coverage where you list.
Coverage depends on what your county publishes. We will tell you honestly if your area is not ready yet.
Prefer email? Write to support@leadbuoy.com, or see contact and support.