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Most wholesalers pull a list with one filter and start mailing. The data says that approach leaves the best leads on the table.
We ran the numbers across DealMachine's nationwide property database and found 1,482,265 U.S. properties that carry all three of the highest seller-motivation signals at the same time: a tired landlord, free-and-clear ownership, and an owner aged 65 or older. California (267,303) and Florida (186,254) together hold nearly 30% of that entire pool.
No lead vendor has published this overlap before. Competitors talk about each signal on its own. Nobody has counted the properties where all three converge, state by state. These are the motivated seller leads wholesaling deals are built on, and this article shows you exactly where they sit and how to find them.
How We Measured This
Let me define the three signals first, because the value of this data depends on what each one actually means.
Signal 1: Tired Landlord
A property owner flagged for an extended holding period with low active management. These landlords have carried tenants, repairs, and turnover for years. Many are done. That fatigue is one of the most reliable signs of a motivated seller in any market.
Signal 2: Free-and-Clear Ownership
No outstanding mortgage on record. The seller keeps 100% of net proceeds at closing. That matters for you as the buyer: there is no lender payoff forcing a minimum price, so the owner has room to accept a fair cash offer and still walk away with a large check.
Signal 3: Senior Owner
The owner is 65 or older. Owners in this group are often in estate-planning mode, simplifying their finances, or managing property on a fixed income. A rental that made sense at 50 often stops making sense at 70.
Each signal is useful on its own. The overlap is where the real opportunity sits. One owner holding all three motivations at once is a fundamentally different lead than an owner holding one.
We measured that overlap at the individual parcel level across 22 states. Every property in the count carries all three flags simultaneously. A landlord who is tired but still has a mortgage does not make the list. A senior owner with a paid-off primary residence but no rental history does not make the list either. The 1,482,265 properties below cleared all three tests at once.
The State-by-State Ranking
Here is the full ranking of triple-signal properties by state, pulled live from DealMachine's property data.
| State | Triple-Signal Leads | % of U.S. Total |
|---|---|---|
| California | 267,303 | 18.0% |
| Florida | 186,254 | 12.6% |
| North Carolina | 98,323 | 6.6% |
| Texas | 85,783 | 5.8% |
| Ohio | 85,570 | 5.8% |
| Michigan | 83,915 | 5.7% |
| Tennessee | 74,061 | 5.0% |
| Pennsylvania | 67,962 | 4.6% |
| Arizona | 67,924 | 4.6% |
| Georgia | 65,782 | 4.4% |
| New York | 58,540 | 3.9% |
| Illinois | 54,234 | 3.7% |
| Colorado | 53,737 | 3.6% |
| New Jersey | 47,397 | 3.2% |
| Missouri | 34,450 | 2.3% |
| Virginia | 31,755 | 2.1% |
| South Carolina | 29,978 | 2.0% |
| Nevada | 23,890 | 1.6% |
| Kentucky | 23,587 | 1.6% |
| Wisconsin | 17,951 | 1.2% |
| Indiana | 12,878 | 0.9% |
| Alabama | 10,991 | 0.7% |
| 22-State Total | 1,482,265 | 100% |
California and Florida sitting at the top is not a shock once you look at the inputs. Both states have some of the largest 65-and-older populations in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Both have decades of strong appreciation, which means long-held rentals are now paid off. And both have deep pools of small landlords who bought investment property in the 1990s and 2000s and never sold.
Stack those three conditions, and you get 453,557 triple-signal properties in just two states.
One note on reading the table: these counts are a snapshot. Owners age into the senior category, mortgages get paid off, and properties sell out of the pool every month. The ranking order is stable, but if you pull this list in your market, expect your live number to differ slightly from the table. That is the difference between published research and a live database.
Three Patterns in the Data
The ranking is useful on its own. The patterns underneath it are where the strategy comes from.
1. The Top of the List Is Extremely Concentrated
California and Florida alone hold nearly 30% of all triple-signal leads. Add North Carolina, Texas, and Ohio, and the top 5 states control roughly half the national pool. If you wholesale in one of these five states, you have access to a disproportionate share of the highest-motivation inventory in the country without leaving your market.
2. The North Carolina Surprise
Most rankings of the best states to wholesale real estate put Texas at or near the top. In this dataset, North Carolina ranks #3 with 98,323 triple-signal properties, ahead of both Texas and Ohio.
Two forces explain it. North Carolina has an aging rural ownership base that bought rental property decades ago. And a decade of steady appreciation left those long-held properties fully paid off. The result is a state most wholesalers treat as a second-tier market quietly holding more premium leads than Texas.
For contrast, Texas has 376,303 total tired-landlord properties. Only 85,783 of them, about 23%, carry all three signals. Big single-filter numbers do not automatically translate into big triple-signal numbers.
3. The Rising Sun Belt Tier
Tennessee (#7, 74,061) and Arizona (#9, 67,924) both crack the top 10 despite much smaller overall populations than New York or Illinois, which they outrank or nearly match. The driver is the same in both states: strong retirement migration plus long-term landlord activity. Owners moved there, bought rentals, aged in place, and paid off their mortgages.
The Rust Belt deserves a mention too. Ohio (85,570), Michigan (83,915), and Pennsylvania (67,962) hold a combined 237,447 triple-signal properties, about 16% of the national pool. Entry prices in these markets are lower than in California or Florida, which means the same marketing budget reaches more of these owners and the deals require less capital to close. For a newer wholesaler, that combination is hard to beat.
Who Should Use This List
This data is for wholesalers and newer investors who want the highest-quality outreach list available, not the longest one. A senior homeowner lead list built on a single filter gives you age and nothing else. This one gives you age, fatigue, and financial flexibility on every record.
Here's why a triple-signal owner is a better lead than a single-signal owner:
- Financial flexibility. No mortgage means no lender payoff setting a price floor. The owner can accept a fair cash offer and still net a large sum.
- Compounding motivation. Landlord fatigue, age, and estate planning each push toward a sale. Together they push much harder than any one alone.
- Lower resistance. These owners are not underwater and not desperate. They are rational people for whom a clean, well-framed offer solves a real problem.
The math is where this gets practical. Say your direct mail budget is $3,750 and postcards cost $0.75 each. On a broad single-filter list, that buys one touch to 5,000 owners, most of whom have no real reason to sell. On a triple-signal list of 1,000 owners, the same budget buys five touches each. Repetition wins in direct mail, and a tighter list is what makes repetition affordable.
The same logic applies to cold calling. Dialing 1,000 owners who each have three reasons to sell beats dialing 5,000 who might have one. Your hours are the scarcest resource in your business. Spend them on the owners the data says are most likely to say yes.
One thing the data does not change: you still have to do the outreach well. A great list with weak follow-up loses to an average list worked consistently. If your phone skills need work, start with our guide on how to cold call in real estate before you spend a dollar on marketing.
Why Only DealMachine Has This Data
Stacking three simultaneous filters across millions of parcels requires clean, standardized, nationwide parcel-level data. County summaries and state-level aggregates cannot do it. Regional lead aggregators, MLS exports, and public deed records cannot do it either, because the three signals live in three different data domains: ownership tenure, mortgage records, and owner demographics.
DealMachine applies tired-landlord scoring, free-and-clear detection, and senior-owner classification at the individual address level across every U.S. county. That is why the findings in this article, like North Carolina outranking Texas and Arizona cracking the top 10, have never appeared in any competitor's published data. The intersection was invisible until you could measure all three signals on the same parcel at the same time.
If you want the full playbook on what to do after the list is built, our guide to finding motivated sellers in wholesale real estate covers outreach, follow-up, and closing.
Your Next Step
The 1.48 million properties in this dataset are not evenly spread, and they are not sitting in the markets most wholesalers assume. The opportunity goes to whoever builds the list first and works it consistently.
Use DealMachine's triple-filter to find your next deal. Open the app, stack Tired Landlord, Free-and-Clear, and Senior Owner, and pull your market's share of the 1.48 million today.
Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly qualifies as a "tired landlord" in DealMachine?
DealMachine flags a property owner as a tired landlord when the data shows an extended holding period combined with signs of low active management. In plain terms: someone who has owned a rental for a long time and appears to be disengaging from it. It is a probability signal, not a guarantee, which is exactly why stacking it with other signals works so well.
Does free-and-clear always mean the owner is motivated?
No. Free-and-clear means the owner has no mortgage, which removes a common barrier to selling at a negotiated price. On its own it says nothing about motivation. Combined with tired-landlord status and a senior owner, it becomes powerful: the owner has the flexibility to sell and two strong reasons to want to.
Can I narrow triple-signal leads to a specific city or zip code?
Yes. The filters in DealMachine work at any geographic level: county, city, or zip code. The state counts in this article are the national picture. Your working list should be narrowed to the markets where you actually buy, then exported for mail or calls.
What's a realistic response rate from a triple-filtered list?
Expect better-than-average response, not magic. Industry-wide, investors typically work through 15–30 leads to close one deal. A triple-signal list improves your odds per contact because every owner on it has three reasons to talk to you, but consistent follow-up over multiple touches still decides who wins the deal.
Can I add an equity threshold on top of these three filters?
Yes, and for the deepest overlap you should. Adding an equity filter of 75% or higher on top of Tired Landlord, Free-and-Clear, and Senior Owner catches valuation edge cases and confirms the owner has maximum room to negotiate. It is the fourth filter for people who want the shortest, strongest list possible.