No black box. Here is how it works.
You should be able to check any number we show. This page says where each one comes from. From the county's own files to a score with reasons: what we collect, how we match it, how the lists and the score are made, and where they are weaker.
- Step 1CollectEvery week we download what each county publishes: the appraiser or auditor (owners, values, sales, building facts), the treasurer (tax bills, payments, delinquency), the recorder (deeds) and, where public, courts and city code enforcement.
- Step 2MatchRecords from different offices are joined to the right parcel by its parcel number, cleaned and checked. Owners are typed (person, LLC, trust, estate, bank) and their mailing address is compared with the property.
- Step 3FlagAll 37 seller lists are rules you can check yourself: tax past due, a death-related deed, an out-of-state owner, an open code case, 15+ years of ownership and so on.
- Step 4ScoreA separate model for every county learns which combinations of facts came before real sales in that county, and gives every property a 1–10 likely-to-sell score with its top 3 reasons.
- Step 5TestEach score is tested on last year's real sales before we publish it, and the result for every county is on the proof page.
The likely-to-sell score
- What the model looks at
- How long the owner has owned it, the last deed (a $0 transfer, an inheritance or sheriff's deed), how often it changed hands, the owner type (person, LLC, trust, estate), tax owed and years behind, value and how it changed, the gap between value and the last price, building age and size, how many properties the owner has, and how often homes sell in the area.
- What it never sees
- Anything recorded after the test date. When we test, the model only gets the records that existed a year ago: not today's owner or mailing address. That keeps the test fair.
- What counts as a sale
- A deed with a real price ($1,000 or more) in the next 12 months. $0 family transfers do not count as a sale.
- What the score means
- 1–10 is the property's rank within its county: 10 is the top 10% most likely to sell in the next 12 months. It is a probability ranking.
- The reasons
- Every score shows the three facts that pushed it up the most, in plain words (for example “owes $78,008 in tax, 2 years behind”).
- How often
- Data is refreshed every week; each county's model is retrained at every refresh, so new sales teach it right away.
The 37 seller lists
Lists are simple rules on the county's records, so you can always check why a property is on one. Each list is explained in plain English, with where it comes from in public records.
All seller lists explained →Where the data comes from
Only official public records from county, court and city offices, listed office by office for every county.
Our data sources →Limits we tell you about
- Counties publish different records. Some have no public court or code data, so their lists are shorter; each county page says what it has.
- Texas and a few other states do not publish sale prices, so sales there are found from deeds and the score test is weaker; we do not publish a test we cannot run fairly.
- A few counties publish the tax rate but not every bill; there the yearly tax is an estimate from the value and the local rate, and the property file says so.
- County records can be late or wrong. We refresh every county every week and fix errors as soon as the county does.
- Every county page names the official offices behind its numbers (auditor, treasurer, recorder, court, city), so you can check any figure at its source.
What public records do not show
- Divorce, because most courts do not publish family cases in a way we can match to a parcel.
- Job loss, illness or any private money trouble. The records only show what an office writes down.
- Repair costs and the condition inside the house. Only the building facts the county keeps (age, size) are on file.
- Loan balances and rates in most counties, so we cannot tell how much equity an owner has. Where a county records mortgages we show what it records.
Where comps are weak
- Texas and a few other states do not record sale prices. There the comparison to nearby sales is thinner, and the score test is shown only when we can run it fairly.
- Counties that publish few sales a year give small samples. Their comps are fewer, and the property page says how many it used.
- Rural and land-heavy areas have few like-for-like sales, so treat a value there as a starting point, not a quote.
How often the data is refreshed
We collect every county's files once a week and rebuild the lists and scores after each collection. A county publishes some records more slowly than others (tax payments monthly, court filings daily, year-end tax snapshots yearly), so a record can never be newer than the office that publishes it. Each file is checked before it is used, and a file that looks wrong is skipped instead of replacing good data. Every county is refreshed weekly.
The LeadCounty Distress Index
A 0 to 100 score for each county. It averages the county's percentile on four measures taken from official records: the share of properties that are tax delinquent, in foreclosure, have an open code case, or got an inheritance deed in the last 12 months. A county needs the tax-delinquent measure and at least one more to be scored. A record a county does not publish is left out, never counted as zero. States are the average of their counties, weighted by property count. Absentee, long-held and sales shares are shown for context only.
See the Distress Index →How we check and correct
Numbers are read from our database at the time a page is built, and every guide names the office behind its facts. Legal and tax rules come from the statute or the state agency, and we leave a rule out if we cannot check it at the source. If you find a mistake, e-mail hello@leadcounty.com with the page and what is wrong.
Editorial standards →Questions about the score
What does the LeadCounty likely-to-sell score mean?
1–10 is the property's rank within its county: 10 is the top 10% most likely to sell in the next 12 months. It is a probability ranking.
What counts as a sale when LeadCounty tests the score?
A deed with a real price ($1,000 or more) in the next 12 months. $0 family transfers do not count as a sale.
Where is LeadCounty data weaker?
Counties publish different records. Some have no public court or code data, so their lists are shorter; each county page says what it has.
See the scores and reasons in your county.
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