A canvassing app that turns the house on Elm into a named owner

The owner's name, and the roof photo attached to the address

Two jobs, and they are the two a trade canvasser cannot do from the truck. SCOUTRE names the owner of the house in front of you through Property in Front, and keeps the photo of that failing roof attached to the address instead of buried in a camera roll.

From there the record gives you a way in. The owner's mailing address sits separately from the property address, so an out-of-state owner gets a letter about their Ohio roof at their Georgia address. A trace returns phone numbers and emails, and one tap opens your own dialer.

After a storm the workflow does not change; only the number of houses worth a photo does. Which roofs it hit is still your eyes and your ladder.

Is this a crew tool or a tool for one person?

One person. There is no CSV import and no export today, and each account is a single user — no teams, no seats, no shared pipelines. Nobody can be assigned a street and nothing rolls up to a manager.

That rules out the five-crew roofing company, better said here than discovered in week two. The owner-operator who knocks their own doors loses nothing to that limit.

What problems does this solve?

Three problems repeat in trade canvassing, and SCOUTRE answers all three on one property record: not knowing who can sign, having no name to follow up after a door hanger, and a camera roll of damage photos nobody can match to an address three weeks later.

I cannot tell whether the person who signs lives here

Occupancy is on the record before you knock. Absentee owner and out-of-state owner flag the houses whose decision-maker is elsewhere, and those become mail rather than a wasted conversation with a tenant. Signal availability varies by property, county and source.

I left a door hanger and have nothing but "the blue house on Elm"

A door hanger with no name behind it is a dead end. Save the house first and you have the owner's name, their mailing address and a place to record what you did: tags for left sticky note, talked to neighbor or looks vacant, plus a follow-up with a date, time and notes that syncs to Google Calendar and Apple Calendar.

My damage photos are lost in my camera roll

Photos taken on a phone lose their address the moment you scroll past them. Field documentation pins them to the property: photos, voice notes, a distress rating from 1 to 5, GPS location and capture time, plus tags for damaged roof, peeling paint, boarded windows, overgrown lawn, cluttered driveway, accumulated mail, code notices and vacancy signs.

Can you look up the owner for free?

Yes, one address at a time. County assessors, property appraisers and recorders publish the owner of record and the owner's mailing address at no charge, and comparing those two addresses tells you whether the owner lives there. Philadelphia publishes at property.phila.gov; Cook County publishes at cookcountyassessor.com.

The free route stops at the name. No phone number, no email, no photo attached to the address, no mail. If you knock two streets a month, it is enough and you should use it.

The signals that mark a household about to spend

A motivated seller is an owner with a reason to sell the house, and an owner preparing to sell often replaces the roof or the system first. Recent transfer, long-term owner and MLS activity mark households at that point, and new owners buy new roofs. SCOUTRE flags all 16 signals on any property you add, next to the owner name and occupancy. Availability varies by property, county and source.

Six steps that cover a canvassing round

Every workflow here starts at one house. You add it, read the owner, record the damage, then choose between knocking, calling and mailing. Six steps cover a canvassing round, whether you are walking a storm-hit street or following a referral three towns over.

Each house sits in an 11-stage pipeline: New, Queued, Called, Texted, Contacted, Analyzing, Offer Sent, Negotiating, Under Contract, Closed, Dead. You set the stages by hand.

What comes back on a house?

One record holds the house and the owner, drawn from licensed county and public-record data. Coverage varies by county. Some counties publish more than others.

• Owner name, owner mailing address, and whether the owner lives there
• Beds, baths, square footage, lot size, year built, zoning, land use and Street View — rough sizing for a quote
• Sale history, last sale price and date, and recent transfer as a signal
• Estimated value and estimated equity, which are estimates derived from recorded loan history and assessed values, not statements of account balance

Sixteen signals sit alongside those fields: preforeclosure, probate or inherited, tax lien, other liens, absentee owner, out-of-state owner, vacant, high equity, free and clear, auction, bank owned, long-term owner, recent transfer, no homestead exemption, low down payment at last sale, and MLS activity. Five change a knock: absentee, out-of-state, vacant, long-term owner and recent transfer.

What SCOUTRE does not do

SCOUTRE holds no trade data. There is no roof age, no roof condition, no permit history, no storm or hail feed and no property-condition score anywhere in the record. Year built is the closest fact and it is not roof age. Everything about condition on a SCOUTRE record is what you photographed and tagged yourself.

• No crews. Each account is a single user — no seats, no shared pipelines, nothing to assign.
• Nothing is logged for you. The tap hands off to your own app and stops there. SCOUTRE does not log calls, emails or texts back onto the lead.
• No market-wide search. You add properties one at a time and the 30+ filters then work on the leads you have saved.
• No estimating, invoicing or job scheduling. This sits before your job software, not instead of it.

What does SCOUTRE cost a contractor?

One plan, $79 a month, after a 3-day free trial, cancel anytime. Leads, captures, skip traces, re-traces, photos, voice notes and follow-ups are unlimited. Calls and texts cost nothing either, because the buttons open your own dialer and messages app.

Physical mail is the only pay-per-use item: postcards from $0.50 and handwritten letters from $0.83, print and postage included, charged on approval. Address verification and a printed proof are shown before you pay, and your first postcard is designed, printed and mailed free. Detail sits on SCOUTRE pricing.

Frequently asked questions

Can motivated seller signals help a contractor?

Yes, in one narrow way. An owner preparing to list often replaces the roof or the system first, and recent transfer, long-term owner and MLS activity mark households at that point. SCOUTRE flags all 16 signals on a property you have added, next to the owner name and occupancy. Signals describe circumstance, not intent, and availability varies by property, county and source.

How do I find out who can authorise the work?

The record names the owner, gives the owner's mailing address separately from the property address, and says whether the owner lives there. Signal availability varies by property, county and source.

Can I mail the owner a postcard with a photo of their own house?

Yes. Mail goes out from the property lead carrying the actual photo of the house you took in the field, to the owner's mailing address. Postcards start from $0.50 and letters from $0.83, print and postage included. A printed proof is shown before you pay.

Can my crew or my office share the account?

No. A second person cannot log in. It is bought by the owner-operator who does the knocking themselves.

Does it keep a log of my knocks and calls?

The tap hands off to your own app and stops there. SCOUTRE does not log calls, emails or texts back onto the lead. You move the lead's stage yourself. What you enter by hand stays: the photo, the voice note, the outcome and the follow-up.

I am a roofer, not a real estate investor. Why would I pay for this?

For two things: knowing who owns the house before you knock, and mailing that owner a card with a photo of their own roof on it. Most of the app is built for investors and you will not use it. If those two are not worth $79 a month at your job size, they are not.

Related guides

• All SCOUTRE solutions — every audience page and its workflow.
• SCOUTRE for solar reps — the same door-level owner check for a different trade.
• Direct mail postcards and letters — the piece that carries the photo you took.
• One-tap outreach — what happens when you tap a traced number.
• Real estate skip tracing — how a trace runs, what it returns, and the hit rates to expect.