Property Registration Programs: Separating Reality from the Sales Pitch
Michael Halpern, President MuniReg LLC
Author’s Note
The following article reflects my professional observations and opinions based on decades of direct experience, publicly available data, municipal case studies, and industry practices. It is intended to inform and support local government decision-makers evaluating vacant, foreclosed, and rental property registration programs.
After reading this article, ask yourself: Who is overselling? Who is honest? And who do I want to work with?
Reframing Property Registries: Administrative Tools, Not Silver Bullets, and Definitely Not a Technology Solution
Vacant, foreclosed, and rental property registration programs are increasingly being adopted by local governments seeking practical tools to address blight, improve housing conditions, and protect neighborhood stability. Yet these programs are frequently misunderstood, misapplied, or marketed with unrealistic expectations. The result can be legal risk, unnecessary expense, operational inefficiencies, and missed opportunities.
When implemented thoughtfully, with clear objectives, sound ordinance language, and effective administration, property registration programs are valuable administrative tools. But communities must first understand what they are, and just as importantly, what they are not.
Misunderstanding the Purpose: The Consequences of Overselling
One of the most common misconceptions is that a registration ordinance is designed to “hold property owners accountable” or even “solve the affordable housing crisis.”
Perhaps that misunderstanding stems from the way some programs are marketed. I have seen registries promoted as tools for increasing housing supply, encouraging affordable housing development, and transforming neighborhoods.
Those claims fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of a registration program.
At its core, a registry is an administrative database, a mechanism for collecting reliable information about properties and identifying the responsible parties.
Don’t take my word for it. Molly Duplechian, Executive Director of Denver’s licensing program, explained it best:
“A registry is essentially just a list. It’s someone saying, ‘Yes, I rent property.'”
The registry itself does not improve housing conditions. It provides the information municipalities need to effectively administer existing laws.
Another common sales pitch is that registries “require owners to maintain their properties.”
While many vacant property ordinances include maintenance requirements, the registry itself is not what enforces those standards.
Property maintenance is enforced by property maintenance codes, code enforcement officers, and building inspectors. The registry simply helps municipalities identify responsible parties and establish reliable lines of communication.
That distinction matters.
Technology Solution, or Administrative Tool?
As noted above, a registry is fundamentally a list: a list of vacant, foreclosed, or rental properties and the contact information for those responsible for them.
Yet one municipality invested more than $175,000 in upfront costs, followed by $149,000 annually, for a technology platform intended to support a vacant property registration program.
Technology certainly has a role. It can aggregate information from multiple sources, automate routine tasks, and improve workflow.
Foreclosure information, for example, is relatively straightforward to aggregate because it is based on public legal filings.
Vacancy, however, is far more difficult to determine. Utility shutoffs, USPS data, and similar datasets are useful indicators, but none are sufficient by themselves. Identifying vacant properties still requires judgment, investigation, and local knowledge.
Technology should support the administrative process, not define it.
When technology drives the program instead of the municipality’s operational needs, costs can become disproportionate to the benefits delivered.
I’ve also seen municipalities told that administering a foreclosure registry internally would require proprietary software costing well into six figures, despite the fact that the underlying foreclosure data is publicly available at no cost.
More recently, new entrants into this space have begun promoting concepts such as “cross-jurisdiction dashboards” and asking, “What if everything was connected?”
For a national mortgage servicer managing registrations across thousands of jurisdictions, those capabilities indeed provide value.
For a single municipality, or an individual code enforcement officer, they do not.
Technology should solve actual problems, not create new ones.
Legal Risk: Ordinance Language Matters
Poor ordinance drafting can expose municipalities to unnecessary legal risk.
One now-defunct vendor encouraged municipalities to adopt specific ordinance language that ultimately created legal challenges.
I have written previously about the importance of careful ordinance drafting and avoiding unnecessary legal exposure.
Another example illustrates how technology alone cannot compensate for policy shortcomings.
In 2024, a Pennsylvania municipality announced a partnership with a technology company to manage what was described as an “abandoned property registry.”
In reality, the ordinance required registration only for properties in foreclosure, not for the broader universe of vacant and abandoned properties.
The result?
An article published earlier this year included these observations:
“Residents regularly remark that out-of-state property owners are the source of the area’s building deterioration… However, local data show deciphering ownership is much more complicated.”
“Analysis found that it can be difficult to identify the person or people who own these buildings, how to contact them, and whether they are local.”
“About a quarter of the properties on the list receive tax bills directly to the blighted address. Many of these properties are owned by LLCs named for the address itself, obscuring who actually owns the building.”
These are precisely the types of ownership and contact issues a well-designed registration ordinance is intended to address.
Technology can organize information that exists. It cannot collect information the ordinance never requires.
The irony is that while the community invested in technology, it still retained ordinance language that unnecessarily exposes it to legal risk. Technology may streamline administration, but it cannot fix a poorly drafted ordinance.
That raises an important question:
Does a technology company possess the specialized ordinance and administrative expertise necessary to help municipalities design effective registration programs, not just provide software?
Registration Programs Are Not Revenue Programs
The same defunct vendor also promoted extremely high registration fees, eventually drawing significant public criticism and legal scrutiny, including headlines referring to “zombie house” regulations as a “money grab.”
Although that company no longer operates, some continue to market registration programs as revenue generators and suggest potentially using registration fees to fund affordable housing initiatives or unrelated municipal programs.
That approach misunderstands the purpose of these ordinances.
Registration fees should support the reasonable costs of administering the registration program itself, not become a substitute revenue source or a funding mechanism for unrelated policy initiatives, the latter could result in unintended negative consequences
Municipalities should be cautious whenever financial projections become the primary selling point.
Final Thoughts
We have NEVER exaggerated what a property registration program is.
We understand that buzzwords, dashboards, artificial intelligence, and technology platforms often make for more exciting sales presentations than simply describing a registry as an administrative database.
But accuracy matters.
Experience matters.
Honesty matters.
Property registration programs are not enforcement tools. They are not affordable housing programs. They are not technology projects.
They are administrative tools that, when properly designed and managed, provide municipalities with accurate information, improve communication, support code enforcement efforts, and free staff to focus on higher-value work.
This is a highly specialized field. Most municipal officials encounter these programs only once or twice during their careers. It is entirely reasonable that they may not know which questions to ask, or how to distinguish thoughtful guidance from an aggressive sales pitch.
That is why expertise matters.
So I’ll leave you with the same question I asked at the beginning:
Who is overselling? Who is being honest? And who do I want to work with?