You can't, you might be able to locate info on county tax records.
http://www.lynn911.com http://www.homes-for-sale-dallas.com

Harry,
This answer is (a) honest and (b) short.
You can't.

The amount of the lien can usually be found on the tax records of the property in most cases. If you are interested in getting this information on a particular property, I will be glad to see what I can find out for you.

Harry,
Despite the fact that nothing requires the Seller to disclose publicly what he pays for a property, much information is usually taken that can be ferretted out. If, however, a Seller buys for cash and a Realtor is not involved, the amount can be effectively unrecoverable.
County records can reveal any liens placed against the property, including mortgages or equity loans or mechanics liens, but this is not the whole story. Realtors can record (but not always) what the amount of the sales price, but often fail to enter any concessions paid by the seller. So, the MLS data, if not zeroed out by the Seller, will disclose the sales price and sometimes the effective sales price after concessions. MLS data is not public data and requires a Realtor to look it up and to obey the Board rules about such data.
As Bruce points out, a Realtor can almost always make an educated estimated of the true sales price based on records public and private, but not always.
By the way, Realtors are required by our Code of Ethics to be honest with the public. The Code of Ethics is enforced by the boards and the licensing act similarly requires us by law to be honest, although it is good to be reminded of our ehtical and legal duty for honesty.
T.E. Sumner

Harry....this has been an interesting exercise to see the responses from different realtors. It really exposes what knowledge is out there in this market. Amazing. Non-Disclosure in Texas means the sales price is not publically disclosed. It has nothing to do with mortgages. Almost the exact opposite is true. The deed of trust is filed with the county deed records and records mortgage amounts. You can reasonably deduct what is owed from those amounts with a mortgage calculator. It won't tell you if they have accelerated payments, but just the original mortgage amounts. Also if they bought the home through a realtor orginally we may be able to tell what mortgage amount was listed in the sale. I don't trust these numbers to be accurate, but it is possible. So you can't find out 100% what is owed, but you can make a reasonable guess. The Equity will be the difference between their sales price, closing costs, and the amount owed, so you won't really know that until you get a deal. If the house in in foreclosure the listing services will usually make a guess on what is owed on their reports so you can more or less quickly try to find the deals with equity first.

Texas is not disclosure state, you could only assume. Realtors have an access to the tax rolls where is disclosed what the amount of their loan is. So simple math could give an idea what the equity is. Ask your Realtor.

Viktor Taushanov
Realtor
Coldwell Banker Residantial Brokerage
972-758-2045 Direct Line
214-697-6797 Cell
viktor.taushanov@cbdfw.com

Hi Harry,

Texas is a non disclosure state, so the seller doesn't have to reveal any of that information. You can look up the deed at the county to find out what they paid for it. However, there's no way of knowing if they financed 100% or paid cash for the whole deal or somewhere in between.

Thanks,
Terri Hayley

If this is a FSBO you can ask the seller however no seller has to tell you because what they owe has no relevence to what the average sales prices are for the area and home conition.

Ask the seller.., search records where property is located, after loan amount is established do the math for best estimate.

Mattye P. Smith
Realtor

Colonial Real Estate

Is this house in Dallas county?
You can go to the Dallas county website and look through deed information if you know when the house was purchased. The deed will have their loan amount. You are do the math to figure approximately how much they owe if they have not been paying extra principal.