Another means to know which property owners are willing to give up on their lots is to ask the county if they have list of “bad addresses”. When counties send out mail to owners regarding their property tax, if the owner doesn’t respond to the mail and the mail wasn’t sent back to them, usually the county makes a list of these “bad addresses”. If the county is not able to contact these people, obviously the people do not know that their property is delinquent right now; chances are they will no longer redeem that property or they simply don’t care to have them any longer.
If the owner doesn’t respond to the county’s notification for several years, you can go to foreclosure, because if nobody can find them then you can do a foreclosure and at the end you own the property and they have no rights to it anymore. The county only has to do a reasonable thorough search. They only have to do what’s reasonable to find these people. That means they send out the letter, they ask the post office, they check some databases. But, if it’s nowhere in those avenues, they don’t have to hire a private detective to find these people, the property owners. They only have to do reasonable search for them.
The aim is to get properties whose owners are more than willing to give up their lots at a minimal cost. Owners who don’t show any interest on their properties (doesn’t pay property tax for a couple of years) are obviously what you should be looking for.
If you want to stick with lower priced properties, also take note of just land or small homes. You can ask counties if they have that list. These are the usual properties that have low value but can still be good investments if you get the drill on investing on them. As a Tax Delinquent Investor, it is good to know all sorts of signs that green lights your offer. Detecting them can diversify your efforts and offer you more chances at making a profit on your investment.