A useful tip doesn’t need to be detailed. It needs to be specific. Here’s the difference, and why it matters.
When we receive a tip, the first thing we do is try to find the property. If we can’t figure out where it is, we can’t review it. So the single most important thing a tip can include is enough information for us to locate the property on a map.
What “specific” looks like
The strongest tips include one or more of:
- A full street address (best)
- An address with a missing house number, plus the cross street
- A nearest intersection plus a brief description (“the green house with the boarded windows on the south side of Maple, just east of 4th Street”)
- A landmark plus a direction (“two doors down from the Baptist church on Elm”)
We don’t need photos. We don’t need a property’s full history. We just need enough to put a pin on a map.
What helps even more
Once we have the location, anything else you can share helps us prioritize. Useful additions:
- How long the property has looked vacant or unattended
- Whether you’ve seen anyone come and go
- Whether the owner is known to you or someone in your network
- Any signs of distress (overgrown yard, broken windows, mail piling up, code-enforcement notices)
- Whether you’ve heard anything about the owner’s situation (estate, divorce, job change, health issue)
- Whether the property is in foreclosure or has been advertised as such
You don’t need all of this. One or two details is plenty.
What doesn’t matter
You don’t need to provide estimates of value, repair cost projections, owner contact information (in fact, please don’t try to contact owners yourself on our behalf), square footage, or legal opinions about ownership.
We have access to title records, tax data, and ownership history. The thing we don’t have is local eyes. That’s the gap a good tip fills.
Common mistakes
- A city or neighborhood with no address. “There’s a vacant house in Brookline somewhere” isn’t actionable. We need a street.
- A property the submitter owns. This is a tip site, not a seller-direct site. If you own the property, contact us through a different channel.
- Tips submitted as a test. We process every submission. Please don’t burn our review time with fake addresses.
- Multiple unrelated properties in one submission. One tip per property, please. It keeps the review cleaner.
The bottom line
The best tip is one we can act on quickly. That usually means an address, a one-sentence observation, and a way to reach you if we need more details. Everything else is helpful but optional.
If you’re sitting on local knowledge — about a house that’s gone quiet, an owner who’s thinking about moving, a property the rest of the market hasn’t noticed — that’s the kind of thing this site exists to capture.
Know of a vacant, distressed, or off-market property?