Author: Luis Garate

Here are some helpful hints on how to find properties when inspecting them prior to completion of the purchase

TWO SCENARIOS HELPFUL IN FINDING THE PROPERTIES OF YOUR CHOICE:

1. The property has a street address. If this is the case, finding the property is very simple. Go Online to www.maps.google.com or maps.yahoo.com and enter the street name and the city/town name. If available, the zip code and the approximate property location will appear. You will then be able to zoom in or out at your convenience until you can clearly tell where the property is located, relative to its surroundings. Once you identify the approximate location of the property you can compare the detailed view of the property location (from www.maps.google.com) with the plat map (available on many county webpages as well as in the County Assessor’s/Appraiser (or Clerk’s) office).

I have received this question a lot from my friends in outside the US who hear about the concept of Tax Lien investing. “Can I invest in Tax liens and Tax deeds even though I am not an US citizen.” Visit http://www.landforpennies.com/secretsrevealed/ to learn how I started investing in real estate as an immigrant from Germany new to the US. The answer is yes. As long as you have a valid ID with a social security number or even only a US TAX Identification number, which you can get even as a foreign citizen and even if you don’t live in the US, you can invest in Tax Liens and Tax Deeds. If you have these you are ready to invest. Attend the auctions live or online, and buy and bid with confidence. More and more states and counties do online auctions so you can even save the travel expenses.

When you do a title search basically what you are looking for is Marketable Title. Marketable title is really the absence of liens and clouds, the absence of IRS liens, and the absence of missing links in the chain of title. Missing links in the chain of title could be for example when the original a person owned a property for 40 years and then passed away and his kids started paying the taxes and eventually they want to sell the property. Well if there was no probate or no will or anything like that, then there is no indication of who should receive this property. It might be that the deceased’s will was to give it to his church. It might be that he mentioned to somebody, “You know what, when I die you’ll get this property,” and this person might even have a witness. Nobody can prove anything and the only solution here is to have the heirs go through a probate procedure to clear the title. For that you or they will most likely need to hire an attorney and it will take a few months.

There are a few things you can do about competition at Tax Deed auctions. 1. Look for more remote counties where less people live. I find that people are lazy. They are not willing to drive 1-2-3 hours to for anything so they just go to their local Tax Deed Auction in their metropolitan city. But if you go to an auction where millions of people are living, more people are going to show up and competition increases. At the same time a higher density of population does not automatically mean that more properties are available for sale. On the contrary counties which are almost vacant of people often have tons of tax delinquent properties coming up for auction and since almost nobody lives there and the people from the big cities are too lazy to drive there for the auction, competition is minimal.

You've done your homework on what to look for in purchasing land. You've got your cash in hand. Now how do you find these properties? You've got numerous options. You can start by looking at the Multiple Listing Service or going on the internet looking at a page like www.Realtor.com. These are great places to find properties but you will have to pay Market Value. If you are like me you don’t want to pay Market value for ANYTHING!!! Of course you also check with the local farmers, city departments if you want a vacant lot within the city limits and last but not least the most common way to find any kind of real estate is by contacting a real estate agents. While this is fine, it won’t get you a bargain, and I am all about bargain.

Like in any market, excessive competition at Tax Deed auctions will affect the prices drive them up closer to the true market value. However in the Tax Deed arena has some characteristics, which prevent this from happen. For more information on tax delinquent investing please visit http://www.landforpennies.com/secretsrevealed/ Characteristic #1: Cash requirements. Tax Deed Sales are usually a Cash affair. That means you can’t come to an auction with $500.00 in your pocket expecting to be able to buy a $100,000 property and then spend the next few weeks qualifying for financing, like it happens in the regular market for residential homes. Instead most counties have regulations expecting any winning bidder to come up with the full cash within somewhere between 24 and 48 hours from the sale.

I have received this question a lot from my friends in outside the US who hear about the concept of Tax Lien investing. “Can I invest in Tax liens and Tax deeds even though I am a foreign citizen and don’t live in the US.” The answer to the question is… yes. As long as an investor can get a US TAX Identification number, which can be obtained from the IRS fairly simple, even a foreign citizen not living in the US, can invest in Tax Liens and Tax Deeds.

If you have a property which you bought through one of the three ways of buying Tax Delinquent properties I am teaching, then you probably have only paid 5-10% of the true market value of that property. Now it is time to realize the profits on that property and one hidden way often overlooked it to Donate the property to a qualified Charity. I am not an Attorney or a CPA, so this is Not meant as absolute advise but only as something that could spark your interests but requires checking and verification with a CPA and/or Attorney. If you are able to purchase a property for a few hundred dollars that is assessed for a few thousand dollars you might be able to donate this property to a charity and you might get a tax deduction based on the TRUE Market value of the property and NOT based on the amount you paid for the property, thus bringing you a nice profit at tax time.

Most people know about going to Tax Lien and Tax Deed auctions and consider these to be the only two ways you can make money investing in Tax Delinquent Properties?   However this like saying that putting a fishing rod with a fly into the sea is the only way to fish. It is ONE way but for sure not the only way.

Generally identifying if a property has a marketable title is basically making sure that there are no liens and that the ownership is very clean and clear. There is no hidden interest in the property or an old interest in the property. The owners are alive and you are in contact with them. The key to look for is whether you can follow the chain of title on a property from owner to owner without coming to an unpaid lien or an unrecorded death certificate and so on. As you find those just mark them as clouds on the title, and then it’s a matter of “Can they be resolved?” That is always the question. If yes, how much effort is it? If it’s easy, great! If it’s not easy, is it still worth it to do the deal for the profits of this property? If yes, great! If not, kill it.