Tax Sales and the Internet
83The internet offers wonderful opportunities to participate in tax sales with out having to leave home.
- The number of internet sales is increasing every year. There are between 300 and 400 sales that are now on the internet and they tend to be the larger sales. For example, Cook County, Illinois is now an internet sale - this is a sale that used to take as long as 40 days to do as a sale you attended in person.
- Some of the states that now have at least some internet sales include: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Florida, and Maryland. I am sure we will see a number of new sales and states being added to this list over the next year.
- Most of the internet sales require you to register some time (one to three weeks) before you can enter bids for the sale. You are usually required to deposit a nominal amount of funds prior to the sale and payment is usually required within one to three weeks after the sale.
You also have the capability to do some, if not all, of your due diligence on the internet. The increase in internet tools for this task has been dramatic over the past two years. We have put links to a number of very good sources at the bottom of this page, but some of the names are:
- Google Earth
- SearchSystems
- Zillow
- TaxSaleLists
- NACO
- Domania
These sites allow you to get the tax sale lists (TaxSaleLists.Com), find the assessor websites quickly (SearchSystems.net), actually view the properties (Zillow for residential and Google Earth for the rest), or get the links to the counties (NACO.org).
What this means is that you no longer have to go to the specific area, rent a motel room or hotel room and a rental car and spend a great deal of time and money doing proper due diligence.
Whatever you do, don't believe some of the "gurus" out there who tell you you don't have to worry about any of the above, that "after all, you are just paying the taxes, how can you go wrong?". If you do not have a pretty good idea about what you are buying then you can definitely go wrong.
If you do your homework you will make money from tax sales and the internet.
Have a great day.
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Comments
Teresa - good question, but since you will end up buying a property at a lien sale, in most states, at somewhere between 3% and 20% of market value, you will have little problem selling it at 75% to 90% of market value.
I have had very good luck selling to those who re-hab properties and doing "rent to own"
Your progam tmpresses me as being honest,help-oriented,and knowledgeable.
How do you actually start doing this tAx Lien business?
Very helpful. But I still feel uncomfortable about not having a real set of eyes to look at the property. Pictures, or descriptions can be deceiving.
That's what I was interested in - how I could do tax sales and due diligence on the internet. Thanks for that great information.
Thanks for the great article. I look forward to working in the tax sales area, but first I need some money to invest -- so I hooked up with Sisel International. Please check out my websites at http://www.MySisel.com/BAM39 and http://YourFutureInYourHands.com for good information and a variety of articles. Please let me know of your successes in tax liens.
Excellent article
Some great tax sale internet sources
- The best source for finding out when sales are held and getting the lists
This is the only site that posts tax sale lists from across the country. Last year they posted over 10,000 lists totaling more than 2.7 million properties. This is a definite must. - An Introduction to Tax Sales
This is a free one hour webinar about tax sales and how they work. They do attempt to sell you their 15 hour training program (which is one of the good ones and reasonably priced) The hour is filled with a lot of facts and 5 minutes of sales pitch. - SearchSystems.net - The Largest Public Records Directory
SearchSystems.net is the internet's largest directory of public records databases. A must for finding assessor, treasurer and other sites where you can get property information on the tax sale properties. - A great way to see pictures of the houses on tax sales
Zillow is a must and gives you photographs of properties that are on tax sales. It only has residential property though. - Google Earth
Here is the download for Google Earth, they will give you aerial views and in a lot of places, street level views of both residential and commercial property. It is free and a great site. - NACo | County Resource Center
The National Association of Counties has links to county web sites (Search Systems is better for assessor sites) but they also have direct links to census information on the county which is a great way to become familiar with the area of interest.
Teresa says:
6 months ago
Your article is great! How coud one make money buying and reselling the Popert y in this time that the economy supposedly is bad? How about you cannot re-sell the property? One ends loosing money.