DealMachine Alternative for Short-Term Rental Owner Leads

DealMachine started as the driving-for-dollars app for real estate investors and has grown into a national property and people database with contact enrichment. If you sell to short-term rental owners, it can find the owner of a home and often a phone number. What it does not describe on its public pages is a way to know which homes are short-term rentals. This page covers what DealMachine does well, what it costs as published, and how public STR permit registers compare.

The DealMachine facts here come from its own pages and documentation, read on October 23, 2026. Check them again before you buy.

What DealMachine is and who it is built for

DealMachine's home page calls it "the most comprehensive real estate data platform in the United States" and invites you to "look up any property, find any owner, or ask for the list you want." It claims more than 150 million properties, 240 million people and 50 million companies, and says it is trusted by more than 150,000 investors, agents and data teams. It lists investors, agents, mortgage and lending firms, solar and home services companies, and developers among its users.

Two features set it apart. The first is its driving-for-dollars app, which lets you drive a neighborhood and tag distressed properties from your phone, with direct mail built in. The second is contact enrichment: the home page says it provides verified phone numbers and emails for property owners, and that entering an address returns the owner's name and contact information. Its API documentation describes more than 200 filterable fields grouped by location, financial and ownership data, including an absentee-owner flag.

For investors working a farm area, or home service companies that want any homeowner on a street, that is a strong and flexible tool.

What DealMachine gives you for STR owner contacts

Give DealMachine an address and it can usually name the owner and attempt a phone and email. That is the useful half for an STR vendor who already knows which homes to target.

The missing half is identification. DealMachine's home page, pricing page and filter documentation, as we read them, do not mention short-term rentals, Airbnb or vacation rentals, and the filter page lists no STR field. The closest tools are the absentee-owner and out-of-area filters. In a ski or beach town, those filters return short-term rentals mixed with second homes the owners use themselves, long-term rentals and vacant property. Each of those rows costs data credits and outreach time.

Driving for dollars does not solve this either. From the street, a short-term rental usually looks like any other house. A lockbox or keypad might hint at one, but it might equally mean a long-term tenant or a contractor's access.

DealMachine pricing as published

The DealMachine pricing page, read on October 23, 2026, showed monthly prices:

• Basic: $119 per seat a month, with 10,000 data credits per seat; the plan listed 2 seats and 20,000 records a month.
• Pro: $179 per bundle a month, with 20,000 data credits and 3 users.
• Scale: $599 per package a month, with 100,000 records and 10 workspace seats per package.

The page had a monthly and annual toggle marked "Save 17%" but did not list annual dollar amounts. A line elsewhere on the site said "Plans start at $99/mo," which may be the annual rate; the page did not say. The pricing page also did not say how many data credits one owner enrichment uses, so we cannot work out a cost per contact. We did not see a free trial mentioned.

How permit-register data differs

Permit data starts from the rental license, not the house. Where a city or county requires short-term rentals to register, the operator files the address and their name, and sometimes a phone and email. Many places publish those lists. Our register directory guide shows which ones.

• Every row is a short-term rental that someone registered. No filter guesswork.
• The name is the operator. On homes held by trusts or LLCs, or run by family members, that can differ from the deed owner that DealMachine finds.
• Contacts are whatever the government published. Some registers publish phones and emails on most rows; many publish none. Lead Mining Company does not verify them.
• Coverage is limited to places with a published register. Unregistered rentals do not appear.

When DealMachine is the right tool

• You work a farm area street by street and want to tag properties in the field.
• You need owner names and contact details for addresses you already have, from one app with mail built in.
• Your service fits any homeowner, so STR status does not matter.
• You want an API with property and people data for your own software.

When permit data is the right tool

• Your service is specific to short-term rentals: STR management, turnovers, linen, guest supplies, STR insurance, listing photography.
• You want new operators. PermitPulse holds 26,549 records filed in the last 12 months and 4,147 pending applications (timing).
• You want a register you can count and map: how many licensed rentals are in each ZIP code, and who holds the most.
• You prefer a flat state price to a credit system.

Using DealMachine and permit data together

The pairing works best in markets where the register gives you a clean list of addresses but no phone numbers. Colorado mountain towns are a good example. As of October 22, 2026, our Breckenridge file held 735 licensed short-term rentals and none with a phone or email, because the published register does not include them. Colorado as a whole had 10,105 records and 304 with a phone or email.

A worked example for a snow removal and property maintenance company in Breckenridge:

1. Get the Colorado file ($149 once or $99 a month) and filter to Breckenridge. That gives you 735 licensed rentals, each with an address and a name on the record.
2. Load the addresses into DealMachine and run enrichment to find owner phones and emails. Use the driving app on the same list to note which homes have long driveways or steep access, if that affects your pricing.
3. Compare the DealMachine owner name with the name in the permit file. Where they differ, find out which one runs the rental before you write.
4. Mail every home first (mail playbook), since mail needs no consent and every record has an address. Follow up by email under CAN-SPAM, and by phone only within the rules below.

Enriched phone numbers for STR owners are often personal mobiles, and many owners live out of state. The TCPA and the National Do Not Call Registry rules apply: scrub every number against the Registry and state lists, use no autodialers or artificial or prerecorded voices, and do not text without consent. Our TCPA and DNC guide has more. This is general information, not legal advice. Contractors can find other uses of the file on our page for maintenance contractors.

Checks to run before you buy either

A short test on one market tells you more than any feature list. Before you commit to a plan, run these checks on a sample.

• Count the overlap. Take 50 addresses from an absentee-owner search in DealMachine and look each one up in the free permit lookup. The share that turns out to be licensed STRs tells you how much of an absentee list you would be paying to contact for nothing.
• Test the enrichment on permit rows. Run DealMachine enrichment on 50 permit addresses and note how many return a phone, an email, both or neither. That is your real match rate for this market, not a national figure.
• Compare names. On the same 50, count how often the DealMachine owner matches the name in the permit file. A low match rate means many rentals sit in trusts or LLCs, and your letters should go to the permit name.
• Check the dates. Sort the permit sample by filing date. If most were filed years ago, the operators already have cleaners and insurers, and your pitch needs to be about switching rather than starting.
• Price the full run. Multiply your sample results by the size of the market file, then compare that with the data credits in the DealMachine plan you are considering.

DealMachine and permit data compared

Where Lead Mining Company fits

PermitPulse is our version of the permit side: 283,611 records from public STR registers, with 125,065 phones and 64,233 emails as published. Plans are $99 a month per state or $299 nationally, and a one-time state download is $149. See the Breckenridge page for that market's counts, or check a single address with the free STR permit lookup.

Frequently asked questions

Can DealMachine find Airbnb properties?

Its public pages and filter documentation, read on October 23, 2026, describe no short-term rental or Airbnb filter. You can approximate with absentee-owner filters, but the results include second homes and long-term rentals. A permit register lists the homes that are licensed as short-term rentals.

How much does DealMachine cost?

Its pricing page listed Basic at $119 per seat a month, Pro at $179 per bundle a month and Scale at $599 per package a month, with an annual option saving 17 percent. The site also said plans start at $99 a month. The page did not state credits per enrichment.

Why do some STR permit files have no phone numbers?

Each jurisdiction decides what to publish. Breckenridge, for example, publishes licensed addresses and names but no phones or emails. For those files, mail the address first, or use an enrichment tool such as DealMachine to look up the owner.

Is the permit holder the owner?

Usually the applicant is the owner or the owner's company, but not always. Some permits are filed by a manager or co-host, and some homes are owned through trusts. Compare the permit name with the deed owner before you call.

Can I text the numbers DealMachine finds?

Not without the owner's consent. The FCC's consumer guide says autodialed texts to a mobile phone generally need prior consent, and commercial texts need written consent. Scrub numbers against the National Do Not Call Registry and state lists, and do not use autodialers or prerecorded or artificial voices.

DealMachine is a trademark of its owner. Lead Mining Company is not affiliated with or endorsed by DealMachine.