How to Learn About Tax Sales

Mike: Hey, it’s Mike Hambright from FlipNerd.com and we have a quick expert tip to share with you from Corey Taylor, who’s going to share a tip on how you can learn more about tax sales and your local market.

Corey: Let’s talk about this. What I think people should do, you can find out your local tax sales from your local county treasurer. It’s at the county level because if you’re in a city you might ask your city treasurer, but usually it’s the county level. You would go down there and there’s a few things you want to know.

One of those things you want to know is does my county sell tax liens, or do they do tax deed auctions? Meaning, are they selling a piece of paper that somebody can redeem, or does the property go right up for auction and we all go bid on its value and I own it, with the auction or not. That’s the difference between having a lien sale and a deed sale.

You can find out what type your county is and how they handle investors buying the taxes. How do they handle that process? That’s a great question to ask. How often do they do it? Is it once a year, twice a year? Usually lien auctions are once a year, and so there’s one opportunity there. But they can have auctions every month depending on what they do. So see how often your county provides lists of distressed individuals by telling you who’s late on their taxes. That’s opportunity to go down and do that.

And then this other question I want you to ask is, “If I end up with a lien in a lien estate, what is required at the end of the day for me to convert this lien into a deed that I would own if they don’t pay the taxes?” So if I’m in a tax lien state, I go buy a tax lien, two years redemption goes by, how do I actually own it? Do I foreclose, do I just get it to me, do I have to buy more taxes, what do I do? If you find those things out, you’re well on your way to figuring out how to invest locally, in your backyard, in real estate leads that your county is happy to provide you because they want you to come buy things and make money with it, because they need the tax money.

So you can find out if it’s a lien or a deed, you can find out if there’s redemption involved, you can find out how do you own it if the time comes, and you’ll be in great shape.

Mike: That’s awesome. And if nothing else you can actually just go to the auction and watch and observe and see what happens, right?

Corey: Absolutely. If it is an auction where people bid anything you should go there. No matter what you find out you should go there and see how that auction goes, lien or deed, and kind of see what happens. But especially if it’s a deed auction, it’s a great point. If it’s a deed auction there is no lien you just kind of show up and bid how much you want to pay for it. But I’m going to do some research up front, see what I do I think I would have paid and then go show up. Maybe you’re in an area where there’s not a lot of competition, and you’d pay those prices all day to get those properties.

And you have another great source to go which is a lot different than the foreclosure auctions. Those are highly trafficked, visited, usually. Almost no one knows about the tax stuff, even on the auction side. But you should go find out, you’d be prudent to go do that and have one more source of lead flow coming in to your business, because we all know that real estate is about the leads.
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