How to Find Commercial Property Ownership and Permit Data: A Guide for Commercial Services Sales Teams

The Problem with Finding Decision-Makers

Sales reps constantly search for insights to give them a competitive edge. In commercial services—HVAC, cleaning and janitorial, solar, roofing, landscaping, and grounds—this means buying signals, permit history, and building ownership data.

If you’re a salesperson prospecting building owners and managers, you’ve likely faced the headache of tracking down the right decision-makers for a commercial property.

It’s rarely straightforward—whether you’re looking for the owner of a commercial building, property managers, or those making key facility decisions, you’re often dealing with outdated information, dead ends, or corporations with complex ownership structures specifically created to keep you from finding the right people to talk to.

In sales, every second counts. Inefficient solutions mean lost time, missed opportunities, extra steps, and that leads to frustration.

Finding property owners and permit data the old way is hard, especially when you need that data to integrate with your sales pipeline and CRM tools without having to type it in manually—risking mistakes.

In this article, we’ll walk you through 11 ways to find property owners. We’ll start with some traditional, fragmented solutions, then show you a couple of faster and more efficient ways of finding property owners, and finally introduce an all-in-one property intelligence platform that delivers direct access to decision-makers, permit history, and even incorporates buying signals so you know who’s in your territory and actively looking for your services.

Traditional Methods for Finding Property Owners and Property Data

Let’s start with the most common methods sales teams use to find commercial property owners. These methods have been used for years but are inefficient.

1. Driving for Dollars and Canvassing

One old-school approach is driving around targeted areas, taking notes on buildings that look promising, or directly canvassing businesses for leads.

Many commercial services businesses say that this has been their primary approach for decades.

The challenge here is that it’s time-consuming, expensive, and relies heavily on luck. While it gives you a firsthand look at the properties you’re prospecting, it doesn’t provide the decision-makers’ contact information or detailed property insights.

You’re left to rely on guesswork to fill in the gaps, and that’s only the beginning.

2. County Assessor’s and Recorder’s Offices

Many choose to skip canvassing and turn to their local assessor or recorder’s office to find ownership records. While these offices maintain detailed records, navigating them can be slow and confusing. In-person visits are often required, and even when records are available online, they’re usually organized for administrative use, not sales.

Additionally, each office has its own system, making it difficult to consolidate information for multiple properties, let alone integrate this data into CRM systems or sales outreach tools.

3. Local Planning and Zoning Departments

Planning, permits, and zoning departments have a wealth of records on building permits and zoning applications, providing insight into a property’s history, renovations, and use permissions.

But similar to county offices, accessing these records can be complex, as each department has its own filing system that’s setup for government use—and, we all know how efficient local government offices tend to be.

Since these records are mostly for compliance, they’re not optimized for prospecting, making it hard to extract the exact information needed to find and send personalized messages to decision-makers.

4. State-Level Resources for Business Entities and other Corporation Data

When properties are owned by corporations or LLCs (which most will be), you can search the Secretary of State’s business entity database to link a property to a business name. For some commercial sales teams, state databases also offer environmental or safety permits- these can be extremely helpful for sales.

However, like local records, this data is scattered across systems that don’t connect with each other, making data collection and tracking a tedious manual process.

5. Local Libraries and Historical Societies

For properties with extensive histories, libraries, and historical societies may hold archived records and historical maps that show past ownership and land use. This is super helpful for understanding a property’s old owners, value, or history, but most of these records are basically paper forms that have been copied into modern databases—making them difficult to index.

This option is more suited for historical research than for high-volume sales prospecting.

6. LinkedIn Searches and Email Verification Tools

When you’re “driving for dollars,” you’ll catch the names of property management groups and other details that can easily be searched on LinkedIn or other professional social media networks. However, finding their contact details is another hurdle once you identify these property owners or managers.

LinkedIn is a great place to start, but many decision-makers have now begun to hide their contact information to eliminate the barrage of generic cold outreach they receive. LinkedIn has also started charging for personal messages, such as “InMail” messages, limiting outreach and charging for outreach at scale.

To find contact information, many reps will turn to email-checking tools that help confirm addresses. However, each of these tools only handles one piece of the puzzle.

So many salespeople will take a look at the domain and publicly listed emails and test different formats to try and reach key decision-makers. This method can risk your domain’s reputation, getting you flagged as “spam.” Making it another fragmented, time-consuming process with no guarantee of reaching the right decision-maker.

7. Title Companies

If you know someone at a title company, they can be a great resource for in-depth property information.

Title companies conduct regular searches to verify ownership and check for liens or “encumbrances” on commercial properties when they’re changing hands.

While this is a very reliable source of data, they’re generally expensive and best used for specific, high-priority properties.

Most title companies don’t offer this as a solutions nor will they allow easy integration with sales, outreach, or CRM systems, which adds an additional layer of difficulty in managing and accessing this data across multiple accounts.

The Challenge with Traditional Methods: Fragmentation, Inaccuracy, and Time Waste

If you’re exhausted just reading about all the inefficient ways sales reps try to find relevant data for decision-makers, you’re not alone. Each method offers a small piece of the whole puzzle needed to make a sale but lacks key pieces to complete the full picture.

They’re fragmented, making it nearly impossible to have all the necessary data in one place, and integrating them into sales outreach, pipelines, and CRM tools requires extra work.

For sales reps, the time and manual effort involved mean fewer conversations with decision-makers and fewer closed deals.

Modern Solutions: Property Intelligence Tools

Now let’s look at the more efficient approach. For years property intelligence platforms were only used by people in real estate—investors, lenders, bankers, and people looking for buildings to buy or lease. Property data was tracked and integrated into apps like LoopNet that brought all of the key data points into one dashboard (or listing).

Using publicly available data, property data platforms were able to locate and map out properties, add relevant tax records, mortgage history, property values, ownership information, building construction details, zoning restrictions, permits and violations.

In short, these tools consolidate property data and make it easier to find ownership and permit information without the hassle of traditional methods.

Platforms Like Reonomy, PropertyShark, and CoStar

Platforms like these provide ownership records, permit histories, and detailed property data in a user-friendly interface. You can search by location, property type, and more. They save hours compared to digging through county and state records.

However, while these platforms offer comprehensive data, they’re typically geared toward real estate professionals rather than the specific needs of commercial services. Integration with CRM systems can also be limited, and these tools may lack targeted features for prospecting and lead qualification.

Benefits of Using Modern Tools

These platforms streamline prospecting by centralizing information, offering advanced filtering, and presenting data in a sales-friendly format. They save time and reduce manual entry. However, while they simplify data collection, they still don’t fully integrate with sales outreach and other sales tools or provide signals about the property owner’s current service needs.

Convex: A Better Solution for Commercial Services

For commercial services, Convex stands out as a better option by not only centralizing property data but also aligning it with your team’s sales needs. Combining sales intelligence and property intelligence allow Convex to serve as the ideal solution for sales teams prospecting property owners and decision-makers.

Direct Access to the Right Contacts

Convex provides detailed contact information for property managers, owners, facilities personnel, and other decision-makers attached to commercial properties, making it easier to connect directly with those who have authority and make buying decisions.

No more wasting time with gatekeepers or incomplete contact details—you get the full picture in one place, ready for direct outreach.

Buying Signals for Targeted Outreach

Convex’s proprietary Signal tool tracks intent data and buying signals to help you know when decision-makers are actively looking for services like HVAC service and maintenance, cleaning and janitorial, snow removal, and other commercial services.

Instead of “cold” outreach, you’re reaching out to decision-makers who’ve already indicated an interest in what you have to offer—this is key to effective outreach.

If you’ve been in sales for any length of time, you know that finding decision-maker contact data is only half the battle; the other half is getting their attention.

Convex uses Generative AI trained on the prospect’s sales intelligence, property intelligence data, and buying signals as well as your own company and contact information to draft emails, phone call scripts (which can also be used to create Loom videos for additional impact), which makes outreach relevant to the decision-maker and simple for your team.

Salesforce estimates that an average sales rep using traditional methods will spend 2 hours per account in research and prospecting, Convex does that same thing in 3- 5 minutes.

Detailed Property Insights in One Place

Convex includes in-depth data, such as building age, square footage, tenant information, permit history, aerial imagery, and property measurement tools. With this level of detail, you can prepare tailored proposals that speak directly to the property’s needs.

Whether it’s calculating square footage for roofing or landscaping or reviewing recent permits for electrical, lighting, solar, or HVAC installations, you’re always informed and prepared.

Smooth Integration with Sales and CRM Tools

The best part? Convex integrates with tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, and more—meaning no more manual data entry.

Convex is designed to work seamlessly with your sales pipeline. Data from Convex integrates into CRM systems, helping you manage outreach, track leads, and convert prospects without bouncing between systems.

This all-in-one approach eliminates the fragmentation and manual data entry that traditional methods demand.

Why Convex Stands Out

While other tools provide parts of the data, Convex is designed for commercial services, providing a holistic view of properties and decision-makers.

With Convex, you’re not only getting data—you’re turning it into actionable insights and accelerating your path to sales.

The Bottom Line: Prospecting Without the Hassle

Finding property owners and decision-makers is no small task. Traditional methods mean piecing together data from scattered sources, resulting in a fragmented process that takes time and slows down your outreach.

While modern tools improve efficiency, only Convex is purpose-built to meet the unique needs of commercial services sales—you get everything you need to prospect smarter and reach decision-makers faster—all in one place.

Ready to simplify your sales process? Schedule a free demo of Convex and get back to what you do best: building relationships and closing deals.