Tired landlord lists: do absentee owners sell?
By Josh MillerUpdated 4 min readOn their own, absentee owner lists sell about like a random house: across 1,794 counties, high-equity owners living elsewhere sold off-market at about 1.8 of every 100 within a year, and owners over 65 living elsewhere at about 1.0. The landlords who sell are the ones with a recorded problem on top, like an eviction, a code violation, a lien or back taxes, so stack the absentee list with one of those.
"Tired landlord" is one of the most-mailed lists in the business. It's also mostly a guess. A list tool can tell you an owner lives somewhere other than the house. It can't tell you whether they're tired.
What the absentee lists actually did
| List | Of every 100, sold | Any house, at random | Counties | Owners on it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High equity, living elsewhere | 1.8 | 1.6 | 1,794 | 15,167,293 |
| Owner 65+, living elsewhere | 1.0 | 1.6 | 823 | 3,722,171 |
Source: GoForClose count of off-market, arm's-length deeds in county records. Lists as they stood in the October 2024 to March 2025 window, counted over the next 12 months.
Fifteen million owners, selling at about the pace of any house. Owners over 65 living elsewhere sold slower than a random house. Mailing these lists whole is mostly mailing landlords who are fine.
What makes a landlord actually tired
A tired landlord has a problem, and problems leave records. Look for an absentee owner with one of these:
- An eviction filed: the tenant stopped paying, and the owner is paying a lawyer. How to use eviction filings.
- A code violation: the city wants repairs the owner hasn't made. Where cities publish them.
- A lien filed against the property: about 4 of every 100 sold off-market within a year across 249 counties.
- Back taxes: about 3 of every 100 owners 2 to 4 years behind sold within a year across 479 counties.
- Vacant: a rental with no tenant is all cost. About 4 of every 100 vacant houses sold within a year across 468 counties.
Each of those sold better than the absentee list on its own. An absentee owner who also has one of them is the landlord the term was meant to describe.
How to build the list
- Pull absentee owners in your county, then take out the high-equity filter: equity makes a deal possible, it doesn't make the owner sell.
- Match them against evictions, code violations, liens, back taxes and vacancy.
- Mail the matches first, and the rest small or not at all. How list stacking works.
Read your county free to see which of these lists sold best there.
Questions investors ask
What is a tired landlord?
An owner of a rental who'd rather be out of it: worn down by tenants, repairs, vacancies or distance. The term is a guess about the owner; the records only show you who owns a house they don't live in.
Do absentee owners sell to investors?
At about the rate of any house. Across 1,794 counties, high-equity owners living elsewhere sold off-market at about 1.8 per 100 within a year, against about 1.6 for a random house in the same counties.
How do I find tired landlords?
Start with absentee owners, then keep only the ones with a recorded sign of trouble: an eviction filed, a code violation, a property lien, or back taxes. Those signals are what separate a tired landlord from a happy one.
Are out-of-state owners better leads than local absentee owners?
Distance adds friction, so out-of-state owners are a reasonable filter, but it's still a standing fact, not an event. Pair it with something that happened to the property.