subject: Unpaid Tax Property - The Hidden REI Investment Secret [print this page] Unpaid Tax Property - The Hidden REI Investment Secret
Unpaid tax property can be a phenomenal investment, and anyone can get a piece of the action - regardless of their financial status. Even experienced competitors won't be able to touch you if you use the right techniques to get profitable property with the right timing. This unpaid tax property is plentiful, inexpensive, and a bigger inventory of it is being created every day - through tax foreclosures.
If you've heard from other investors about the great deals at tax sale, they may just be trying to thwart you. The bidding process ensures that every desirable deed will be bid up close to market value. And keep in mind that if you DO win, you'll have to fork over the cash right then and there. And the final straw? The owners redeem 95% of the time. Sorry
Don't take this to mean you can't get a great deal on unpaid tax property - quite the opposite. How to get it? From the owners - when they're about to lose the home to the government permanently, at the end of the redemption period. Most of the owners left at this point are forfeiting the property to the government - they don't want it anymore.
You'll be able to buy these properties for next to nothing. The owners, oftentime heirs or landlords, don't want the burden of a second set of taxes. They just want the property to disappear. The most you need to do here is ask these owners for their deed! They don't want it anyway. Even offer them $200 for the time they have to spend dealing with the paperwork. If you want to, you can pay the taxes and keep the property; otherwise, a realtor can help you price it for a quick sale - and you walk away with thousands in your pocket.
Use this method, and you'll have your first $200 property in no time. And it just so happens that a bad economy creates the perfect conditions for you to jump right into the business.
There's an even bigger secret - when the county gets more money for a property than was owed on the taxes, that money usually belongs to the delinquent owner. Most owners don't realize this, since in many states, the money just goes right to the government. They've often moved, and thus don't get any notice that's sent to the tax sale address. And it gets worse - if they let it sit for a year or more, in most cases it will be lost permanently to the government.
Here's where you come in - since these funds aren't held by the state, they are usually not subject to state laws about finder's fees. What that means for you is that you can charge 40-50% as a finder's fee for locating this money for owners. Do the math on a $50,000 overage - not a bad payday.
