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. Both of those, read against their own filings, disclose in practice: Arizona appends an Affidavit of Property Value to the deed, and Washington files a Real Estate Excise Tax affidavit with the county, and each states the price. 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."

Which states are non-disclosure states?

Twelve states appear on every published non-disclosure list. A handful of sources count thirteen or fourteen by adding partial-disclosure cases, so the count you see depends on how the author treats the hybrids. The twelve below are the ones no list disputes, with the record that does stay public in each.

State law and county practice both change. Confirm current treatment for the specific county before relying on it in a deal.

Is Texas a non-disclosure state?

Yes. Texas does not require the sale price to be reported to any public authority, so the recorded deed transfers ownership without stating what was paid. What Texas does publish is a county appraisal district value for every parcel, updated annually. For list building that is the substitute: appraised value, plus recorded loan amounts, gives an equity estimate without a comp.

Is Washington a non-disclosure state?

It is often described as a hybrid case, and in practice Washington discloses. The price is not stated on the deed, but a Real Estate Excise Tax affidavit carrying the sale price is filed with the county at recording and is searchable through the county. That is why some published lists count Washington as non-disclosure and others do not.

Is Arizona a non-disclosure state?

Arizona is often described as a hybrid case, but in practice it discloses. An Affidavit of Property Value stating the total consideration paid is appended to the deed at recording and becomes public record under A.R.S. 11-1133. Transfers between family members and transfers where no money changes hands are exempt, so some sales still show no price.

Is Louisiana a non-disclosure state?

Yes. The Act of Sale is recorded with the parish clerk so that ownership is on public notice, but the price paid is not part of what Louisiana requires to be disclosed publicly. Parish assessor valuations remain public, and so do mortgage recordings, which is where an equity estimate has to come from instead.

Is Kansas a non-disclosure state?

Yes. Kansas does not require sale prices to enter the public record, so a recorded deed shows the transfer without the consideration. County assessor valuations and recorded mortgages stay public, and the distress filings that drive off-market lists in Kansas, tax delinquency and foreclosure notices, are unaffected by the disclosure rule.

Is Mississippi a non-disclosure state?

Yes. Mississippi keeps the purchase price out of the public record. Deed transfers, county assessor valuations and tax-sale lists all stay public, which is why a Mississippi list is usually built from tax delinquency and years-owned rather than from recent-sale comparables that no public file can supply.

Is New Mexico a non-disclosure state?

Yes. New Mexico does not require the purchase price to be recorded, so the deed records the transfer alone. County assessor valuations remain public and are the usable value signal. Absentee ownership, years owned and recorded lien position are all still available for segmenting a New Mexico list.

Is Missouri a non-disclosure state?

Mostly. Missouri (MO) as a whole does not require sale prices to be disclosed, but three of its most populated jurisdictions do treat the price as public record: St. Louis City, St. Louis County and Jackson County. Outside those three, Missouri behaves as a non-disclosure state, so the answer depends on the county your list is in.

Is Montana a non-disclosure state?

Yes. Montana does not put the purchase price into the public record. Deed transfers and the Department of Revenue assessed value stay public. For an investor list, that means building from ownership tenure, absentee status and recorded liens rather than from a recent-sale price the state never publishes.

Is Idaho a non-disclosure state?

Yes. Idaho does not require sale prices to become public record, so the recorded deed shows the transfer only. Assessor valuations, tax-delinquency rolls and recorded mortgages remain public. Those three together carry most of the equity and distress signal an Idaho list needs.

Is Utah a non-disclosure state?

Yes. Utah keeps the purchase price out of the public file. The deed still records the transfer, and county assessor valuations stay public and current. Utah is one of the more active investor markets on the non-disclosure list, so the workflow shift matters here more than the label does.

Is Alaska a non-disclosure state?

Yes. Alaska does not require the sale price to be publicly recorded. Deed transfers and borough or municipal assessor valuations stay public where they are maintained. Alaska also has large unorganized areas with no borough assessor, so record coverage varies more by locality here than in any other state on the list.

Is North Dakota a non-disclosure state?

Yes. North Dakota does not require sale prices to enter the public record. Deed transfers and county assessor valuations remain public, and recorded mortgage amounts are available where a lender is involved, which together give the loan-to-value estimate a comp would otherwise supply.

Is Wyoming a non-disclosure state?

Yes. Wyoming does not make the purchase price public. Deed transfers and county assessor valuations stay public. Wyoming also carries a high share of entity-held property, so resolving who is behind an LLC on the deed is usually the harder problem there, not the missing price.

Is Virginia a non-disclosure state?

No. Virginia is a disclosure state: the consideration paid appears in the public record with the recorded deed, so recent sale prices are obtainable from county and city records. Comping a Virginia deal works the ordinary way, and nothing on this page about missing comps applies there.

Is Colorado a non-disclosure state?

No. Colorado is a disclosure state. The sale price reaches the public record through the recorded documentary fee, and the assessor separately collects a transfer declaration for valuation. Recent sale prices are therefore available for Colorado comps, unlike in the twelve states listed above.

Is Ohio a non-disclosure state?

No. Ohio is a disclosure state: the sale price enters the public record with the recorded deed transfer, so recent Ohio sale prices are obtainable from county records. Nothing on this page about missing comps applies in Ohio.

Is Alabama a non-disclosure state?

No. Alabama is a disclosure state: the consideration paid is part of the public record created when the deed is recorded, so recent Alabama sale prices are obtainable from county records and comping works the ordinary way.

Is Georgia a non-disclosure state?

No. Georgia is a disclosure state: the sale price reaches the public record through the transfer filing recorded with the deed, so recent Georgia sale prices are obtainable from county records.

Is Oklahoma a non-disclosure state?

No. Oklahoma is a disclosure state: the sale price enters the public record with the recorded deed, so recent Oklahoma sale prices are obtainable from county records.

Which states are disclosure states?

Every state not named above. The states investors most often check against this list, and the answer for each, are below. In all of them the sale price reaches the public record, so comps come from county records the ordinary way.

Does a non-disclosure state change how skip tracing works?

No. Disclosure policy governs the sale price, not the identity record. The owner of record still appears on the assessor roll and the recorded deed in all twelve states, so a name and property address go into a skip trace exactly as they would in Florida or Ohio, and Ava Data returns a phone for 1 credit (2 cents) on a match.

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 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", "lineType": "Mobile" }
    ],
    "emails": ["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?

Twelve states: Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri (outside St. Louis City, St. Louis County and Jackson County), Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming. Arizona and Washington are often treated as hybrid cases, though both disclose the price through a recorded affidavit. Confirm county treatment before relying on it.

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.

How many non-disclosure states are there?

Twelve states appear on every published list. Some sources count thirteen or fourteen by folding in partial-disclosure cases such as Missouri's three disclosing counties, or by counting Arizona and Washington, where the price reaches the public record through a recorded affidavit rather than the deed itself.

Which Missouri counties publish sale prices?

St. Louis City, St. Louis County and Jackson County treat the sale price as public record. Everywhere else in Missouri the price stays out of the public file, so whether Missouri counts as non-disclosure for your list depends entirely on which county the parcel sits in.

Which property fields can I still filter on in a non-disclosure state?

Every filter that does not depend on a recorded sale price: property type, owner type, absentee status, years owned, square footage, lot size, assessed value, and recorded loan and lien position. All of those come from assessor and recorder files that each county keeps for its own purposes, non-disclosure or not.