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.
One thing we always preach is that your research equals your results. There’s an auctioneer that sells thousands of tax sale properties a year and my favorite things he says is simple . . . before every auction, he says: “Know What You’re Bidding On.” Pretty much to the point, right? And he’s not saying this because he enjoys saying it. He says this because he know, after many years in this business that the single biggest issue for investors is that they don’t know what they’re buying
It’s up to YOU to know exactly what you’re bidding on. And the fact is, you’re not bidding on the pictures the auction company shows you, you’re not bidding on the value Zillow has, you’re not bidding on what the neighbor said. You’re bidding on the property based off of YOUR research. And your research alone. And you had better know what the heck you’re doing, otherwise you’ll end up making a bad investment.
So, how exactly can you determine what you’re doing. How can you figure out what you’re bidding on? Well, the truth is that we have an entire academy on this topic. That’s what we teach in depth in the tax sale academy. But, in today’s episode I want to provide you with three tools for tax sale research that will really help give you a head start.
The first tool is where I’ll usually begin my research.
Property appraiser reports. Every single property in a county is assessed by the county tax collector. Although some people might not believe it, they don’t just pull a name out of thin air and so, yep, let’s tax Mr. Denman $5,000 this year because we don’t like him. Instead, they actually tax the property owner based on the value of the property. This means that they actually physically look at the property, take notes, and then determine a value for the property. But their value is often different than the fair market value, so we really aren’t interested in their reports because of the valuations.
Instead, they must keep records of who was taxed what… and… this is the most important part to us… and WHY they were taxed what they were taxed. What exactly were those taxes based off of? This means that the land size, shape, zoning and other features are kept in a database. It also means that the improvements that had a value placed on them for tax purposes are logged – things like age, shape, size, condition, updates, all this stuff is kept in this same database. This database base can be referred to as the property appraiser’s report, or property assessor’s reports depending on what they typically refer to them as in your area. And the best part is this: the property appraiser reports are available to the public. Now, they might require some effort to access, like a trip to the county office, but in many developed areas these reports are available online with just a few clicks of the mouse. They’re a tremendous resources.
The second great asset to utilize is called GIS, or geographic information system. GIS is essentially an aerial view of a specific geographical area. In the most advanced GIS systems, you can imagine that you’re flying in an airplane. As you fly along, you look down and see the ground. Then you’ll see that every single parcel has a boundary line around it, which is a tremendous help in locating properties. From there, you can add a variety of layers. This might include the zoning classifications, the water or sewer lines, school districts, voting districts, schools, churches, city limit boundaries, subdivision boundaries and so much more, including my favorite, which is recent sales history. You can determine, based off of the actual recorded history, the sales in the area around the property. If you’re looking for comps, this is going to be a pretty good place to start, right?
Now, this is not available in every area because there is some expense involved, but when it is available, be sure to take full advantage of it.
The last resource I want to discuss is Google Maps. This isn’t exactly earth shattering, I know, but Google Maps has proved to be a tremendous resource in my business. There are several ways to locate the property and then transfer either the address or coordinates into Google Maps to determine the precise location. From there, you can use the standard mapping feature to get the proximity from cities and other amenities. To get a little more advanced you can use the aerial view feature. This will provide an aerial view similar to some GIS systems, but it might be more recent depending on the area you’re located in. It’s also typically fairly clear imagery, all things considered. I’ve seen more than one home that looked great on photos, only to see the GIS aerial view to realize that the roof is missing or has burned through. It can also help with determining the existence of roads, the condition of the neighbor’s properties, area amenities and lots of other pertinent information. Once you have reviewed the standard map and aerial map, it’s time to take a look at the Street View. Google Street View, which is not available in all areas, is basically a geotagged locational photo as if you were walking or driving down the street. In short, you have a car with a 360 degree camera located on the top that drives up and down the roads, all while logged the exact locating that each 360 degree photo is taken. You can essentially walk up and down the street as if you’re there. Obviously, pay attention to the little text that says the month and the year that the photo was taken, but this is a HUGE tool and the closest you can usually get to actually being there yourself or hiring someone to be there for you.
With that said, never rely on any piece of software to do 100% of your research. If it looks great on the property appraiser report, on GIS and on Google Maps, then that means it’s worth a little effort to confirm that in person with your own two eyes.
Thanks so much for joining me on today’s episode. For more information on using each of these tools, be sure to check us out on YouTube. We’ll be posting screen casts where you can view our screen as we go over a few of the features in each of these tools. You can access our YouTube channel at YouTube.com/TheTaxSaleAcademy or just search tax sale academy in the youtube homepage.
And if you haven’t done so yet, be sure to pickup your copy of my free book, Tax Sale Playbook, which you can get at TaxSaleAcademy.com. The book itself is free, we just ask for your help covering the nominal shipping costs.
And as always guys, if you found this episode helpful it will mean so much to us if you take a few second to leave positive feedback.
Take care guys and make it a successful day.
See ya!