Technology Is The Answer? For Tax Deed & Lien Investors?

Transcript:
Welcome to the Tax Sale Podcast, where tax sale investing is made easy.

I’m Casey Denman, a tax sale veteran, expert, and trainer, author of the tax sale playbook, founder of the tax sale academy and your host here on the tax sale podcast.

Thanks for joining me on today’s podcast, and as always, at the conclusion of this podcast, if you’re looking to learn more about investing in tax defaulted real estate head to taxsaleacademy.com. That’s taxsaleacademy.com.

Guys, I’m so excited about today’s podcast episode. Today we’re talking technology. And we’re talking about how it’s changed the world, including real estate. I know, that’s not exactly ground breaking information there, right? You probably know that technology has changed so much in our daily lives.

But, let me take you back a few years and then we’ll come full circle and you’ll begin to understand how YOU can profit using technology in a business that’s always been considered a boots on the ground, you must be there, you must get outside and view it type business.

When I first got into real estate, I remember the first person I ever worked with teaching me the ropes in 2002. The first week I learned quite a bit about how real estate worked at that time. My first lesson was something called the MLS. Which of course stands for the multiple listing service, which is where all Realtors list their properties and it can also be a database of information. But the MLS then is not what it is now. He pulled out three telephone type books that was the MLS. Back then, the MLS wasn’t really computer based. It was based these massive books that made it horrendous for anyone to find anything.

After my MLS lesson, I learned about county records. But, I didn’t learn by browsing to a website. I learned by driving to the county office, looking at microfiche under a microscope and taking notes handwritten notes on my little notepade. They did have some files available that were full size. Of course, if you wanted a copy you paid the $.15 per page, paid in advance of course.

And for maps, I had this spiral notebook type thing that the county roads listed on it. I thought it was the coolest thing at the time. Except… it always seemed to just happen to be missing the roads I actually needed.

Because of this basic system my first few years in real esstate the market was controlled by the well-funded and the industry veterans. I remember being told multiple times that I couldn’t buy a property or no one wanted to work with me because I was a newbie. I was told to pay my dues for 10 or 12 years and work my way up. That’s how you could fit into the system back then.

Well, over time the MLS gained popularity online, county records transitioned online in most areas, GIS become popular and so much more changed the entire industry. But most importantly, buying and selling real estate changed. And more specifically, the entire tax sale industry changed.

Real estate went online. And when it did that, it meant that opportunities went online and became anyone’s to take advantage of. The old guys and industry vets continued to do things the old ways – until they began to struggle.

One day during the transition to a real estate market that was becoming more and more dominated by what happened online instead of offline, it just clicked for me. I realized that opportunity was directly in front of me and was mine for the taking. Technology had become my answer to success in this industry.

Here’s how I leverage it to my advantage, which, by the way, also happen to be the same things I teach others.

1) Research is primarily done online now. Become an expert on researching properties and you’re half way to tax sale success. It sounds easy, but there’s quite a bit to it. Use the internet and the infinite amount of resources we have at our disposal – and btw, this includes both your computer and your mobile devices since there’s a time and place to use both for research. You don’t need to be a 20 year real estate veteran to learn about what’s going on in the market – you don’t need the insider information when you can find it yourself now!
2) Buying. While visiting courthouses and picking up the phone still definitely have their place in this industry, the majority of the tax sale lists are available online. This includes both the auction lists and the OTC lists. Additionally, many counties are even offering properties at auction or for sale utilizing the internet. The past few years have seen many states modify their state statutes that allow the electronic selling of tax sale properties now. This has been a game changer if you learn how to buy online.
3) Selling. So the first two, researching and buying I figured out pretty quickly. But this one, this one can change your life once you get it figured out. Real estate has historically been sold in a local in person manner. Where you meet with a well dressed Realtor, sign documents in a fancy office and all that good stuff. And the truth is that this is the way the majority of the country sells real estate to this day. Sure, they might have some form of internet marketing to drive leads or something like that, but the actual conversion is usually done in person. Here is the key to selling online: Learn to get your property in front of as much targeted traffic as possible, learn how to properly market your properties, and then learn how to close those transactions with those targeted buyers. Once I learned this concept, my business began to immediately scale, very very quickly.
4) And speaking of scaling, growth is the next one. And there’s so many diferent ways that technology allows us to grow as tax sale investors. First off, we can operate so much more efficiently. I’ve invested in hundreds of different markets. Without knowing how to utilize technology, there is absolutely no way this would be possible. Using technology we remove the artificial barriers of having to operate in just one county or one area. I have story after story how I’ve been at one auction buying properties while, submitting bids at another live online auction and waiting for the results of my proxy bids coming back from a third auction. We can also use it to build our buyer’s database. In the old day’s someone might have 5 or 6 potential buyers in their rolodex, now we can quickly build a list of 1,000, 5,500 or even more potential buyers without much effort. We can buy faster, sell faster, grow faster, and ultimately we can make more money because of technology.

Guys, I don’t want you to think for a minute that you can’t get in this business. Because the fact is that there are so few barriers to enter this business right now that it’s the best time in history to get into the tax sale business. Sure, it absolutely takes work. Sure, it takes effort to learn how to efficiently and accurately use all of these resources. If you think it’s in quote, easy, to do this as a beginner, then you’re mistaken. But . . . it can get easier and easier every step of the way. If you invest the time and effort into learning how to do it, you can absolutely see success in this business thanks in no small part, to technology. Embrace it, learn from it, and profit from it.

And obviously guys, if you want help to shortcut that process, we have loads of resources available for you inside the tax sale academy, which you can access by going to TaxSaleAcademy.com. That’s taxsaleacademy.com

That’s it for today. Thanks so much for joining me on this episode.

And as always guys, if you found this episode helpful it will mean so much to us if you take a few seconds to leave positive feedback. We read each and every comment, notice every five star review and like and we are so grateful for each and every one of you.

Take care guys and make it a successful day.

See ya!