Non-Disclosure States (Real Estate)

What it means

A non-disclosure state is one where the final sale price of a property is not required to become public record. County recorders in these states still record the deed transfer, and often the mortgage or deed-of-trust amount, but the actual purchase price the buyer paid — the number every "comp" search depends on — never enters the public file.

As of 2026, the commonly cited non-disclosure states are Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri (most counties, with some local exceptions), Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming, with Arizona and Washington often described as hybrid cases — disclosure requirements there vary by transaction type or apply only to certain government offices. State law changes and county practice within a "non-disclosure" state can vary, so verify current treatment for a specific county before relying on it in a deal.

Why this is a data problem, not just a privacy quirk

Every "what did that house sell for" tool — an automated valuation model's inputs, a title company's comp sheet, an appraiser's sales-comparison approach — ultimately traces back to a recorded sale price. Remove that number from the public record and three things get harder:

• Comping a deal. Estimating ARV or a fair offer without recent verified comps means leaning more heavily on assessed value, price-per-square-foot from listing data, and MLS sold-price data shared privately among members — none of which fully replaces a verified recorded sale price.
• Finding truly motivated sellers. Distress signals that are still public in non-disclosure states — pre-foreclosure filings, tax delinquency, absentee ownership, years owned — become relatively more important, because the sale-price-based signals other markets lean on aren't available at all.
• Evaluating a wholesale assignment. A buyer reviewing a contract can't independently check what the wholesaler paid the seller from the public deed alone.

None of this makes non-disclosure states worse markets — Texas and Utah, both on the list, are among the most active investor markets in the country. It means the data workflow shifts from "pull the comp" to "build the case from everything else that stays public."

How Ava Data handles non-disclosure states (real estate)

List Builder's filters are built from data that stays public regardless of a state's disclosure policy: property type, loan and lien characteristics, owner type, years owned, square footage, lot size, and assessed value all come from tax-assessment and deed records every county maintains for its own purposes, non-disclosure or not. In a non-disclosure state, expect the last-sale-price field to come back blank or approximate on many records — that's the state's policy showing up honestly in the data, not a gap in ours.

The workaround for the missing comp is the one described above: lean on the distress and equity signals that remain fully public everywhere. Pull pre-foreclosure, tax-delinquent, or absentee-owner lists for a non-disclosure-state county the same way you would anywhere else, then skip trace the owners — 1 credit (2¢) per phone match, 2 credits (4¢) for phone + email — to get a conversation started instead of waiting on a comp that may never become public.

For developers: example API call

If you'd rather click than code, the Ava Data dashboard returns the same data without a single line of JSON. The snippet below is for teams wiring Ava Data into a CRM, dialer, or AI pipeline.

{
  "firstName": "Carla",
  "lastName": "Reyes",
  "address": "1180 Sabine St",
  "city": "Austin",
  "state": "TX",
  "dataTypes": ["phone", "email"]
}

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "matchFound": true,
    "creditsCharged": 2,
    "phones": [
      { "number": "5125550172", "type": "mobile" }
    ],
    "emails": [{ "address": "creyes@example.com" }]
  }
}

Related terms

• Pre-Foreclosure Leads — Pre-foreclosure leads are homeowners against whom a Notice of Default or Lis Pendens has been recorded but whose property has not yet been sold at auction — the window in which a cash offer can prevent foreclosure.
• Tax-Delinquent Properties — Tax-delinquent properties are parcels whose owners have fallen behind on county property taxes — a public-record signal of financial distress and one of the highest-converting lead sources for cash buyers.
• Absentee Owner — An absentee owner is the legal owner of a property whose mailing address differs from the property address — typically a landlord, an inherited-property holder, or an out-of-state investor — and a top target for off-market acquisitions.
• How to Find the Owner of a Property — Finding a property's owner takes two steps: identify the owner of record through public sources like the county assessor, then find current contact information — the step where most searches stall and where skip tracing does the real work.

Frequently asked questions

What states are non-disclosure states for real estate?

The commonly cited list includes Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri (most counties), Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming, with Arizona and Washington often treated as hybrid cases. Rules vary by county and transaction type, so confirm current treatment before relying on it for a specific deal.

Why don't non-disclosure states publish sale prices?

State law simply doesn't require it. The deed transfer itself is still recorded — ownership changes hands publicly — but the purchase-price figure is either omitted from the recorded document or kept out of the public index, depending on the state.

How do investors comp deals in a non-disclosure state?

Mainly through assessed value, price-per-square-foot from active or pending listing data, and MLS sold-price data shared privately among members even though the county file stays blank. None of these fully replace a verified recorded sale price.

Does Ava Data have sale-price data for non-disclosure states?

No — Ava Data doesn't manufacture a sale price the state doesn't record. List Builder's other filters (loan and lien status, owner type, years owned, assessed value) come from records that stay public regardless of disclosure policy, and are the more reliable signals to build a list from in these states.