Public Records Researcher — Find Distressed Vacant Lots in County Records (FL & CA)

Overview We are an active land investment company that buys vacant lots directly from motivated owners. We are looking for a patient, detail-oriented public records researcher to dig through county government records and build us lead lists of vacant lots showing signs of owner distress — the situations where an owner is most likely to sell fast and cheap. Important: This job is specifically about searching county records directly — tax collector, clerk of court / official records, property appraiser/assessor, and code enforcement portals. We already have PropStream and similar aggregator tools; we do NOT want data pulled from those. We want you in the actual county sources, finding distress signals those tools miss or report late. If your plan is to export from PropStream/PropWire/DataTree, this is not the role. Target markets (search THESE — these are the areas we already work) Focus on these counties, prioritizing the cities/subdivisions listed: Florida: St. Johns County — Hastings, Flagler Estates Escambia County — Pensacola Hernando County — Brooksville Brevard County — Palm Bay / Port Malabar California: San Bernardino County Kern County (County-wide tax and court records are fine to search; just prioritize distressed lots in or near the cities/subdivisions above.) What to look for — distress signals Search county records for vacant/unimproved lots whose owners show one or more of these signals. The more signals stacked on one parcel, the hotter the lead: Code enforcement violations / liens — open code cases and recorded code-enforcement liens (city or county code enforcement). Note the violation and any lien amount. Lis pendens — notices of pending litigation in official records (often foreclosure, HOA/POA foreclosure, or partition). Note the case number and type. Probate / deceased owner — probate cases and estate filings; heirs frequently want to unload inherited vacant land. Note the case number. HOA / POA liens — recorded liens for unpaid dues/assessments (very common in the platted subdivisions we work). Municipal / special assessment liens — unpaid paving, sewer, MSBU/MSTU, or utility assessments recorded against the parcel. Judgments / other recorded liens against the owner tied to the parcel. Absentee / out-of-state owners — where the owner's mailing address differs from the property (and especially out-of-state). Not distress by itself, but a strong motivation multiplier when stacked with anything above — flag it. Note: We do NOT need tax-delinquency leads — we already pull those ourselves. Focus on the signals above, which are harder to find and are exactly why we need a human in the records. If you find another county-record signal that reliably indicates a motivated owner, bring it — we're open to it. What you'll deliver A clean spreadsheet (one tab per county) where each row is a distressed vacant lot, containing: County / city / subdivision Parcel ID / APN Property address or legal description (many lots are unaddressed — legal description/APN is fine) Confirmed vacant/unimproved (per assessor land-use code) Owner name(s) Owner mailing address — flag if absentee / out-of-state Distress signal(s) — list every one that applies, with specifics (lien amount, case type, case status) Source & reference — which county department/site it came from, plus the case or instrument number and date Link or screenshot where possible, so we can verify quickly Accuracy and verifiability matter more than raw volume. A shorter list of confirmed, well-documented distressed lots beats a long list we can't trust. Ideal candidate Comfortable navigating clunky government websites — tax collector, clerk of court/official records, property appraiser/assessor, code enforcement. Knows how to read a delinquent tax list, a lis pendens, and a recorded lien. Patient and meticulous; cross-references a parcel across multiple departments. Organized spreadsheet output with sources cited. Prior experience with tax-deed/tax-lien research, title/abstract work, or real estate lead research is a big plus. To apply In your first line, write the word "COURTHOUSE" so we know you read this. Pick ONE of our counties and tell us the exact websites/departments you would use to find (a) recorded code-enforcement liens and (b) lis pendens or probate filings, and how you'd narrow those to vacant lots only. Briefly describe any public-records or tax-lien/deed research you've done before. Paid test: Strong applicants will be hired for a small paid test — pull a short, documented list of distressed vacant lots from ONE of our counties using county records only. If the work is accurate and verifiable, we'll move to steady, ongoing lists across all of our markets. Budget / structure: $25 per 10 verified leads ($2.50/lead). A payable lead must include: confirmed vacant/unimproved, at least one documented distress signal with a case or instrument number, owner name, and owner mailing address. Missing the mailing address or a source reference = not a lead, not paid. Paid test first: we'll start with a first batch of 10 leads so we can see both the quality and the real yield per county before committing to steady volume. Accuracy and documentation are everything here — we're paying for verified, motivated-owner leads that the usual data tools don't surface, not raw quantity.