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.
Today, I’ve got an episode that I truly hope provides some direction for you as a new tax sale investor. If you’re familiar with me, you know that I am the creator and trainer at The Tax Sale Academy. It’s a comprehensive step by step training course that I offer at TaxSaleAcademy.com.
I’ve had the privilege of teaching many many students and it’s such a fulfilling endeavor to be able to have such a positive financial impact on so many. At this point in my career, I hear a new success story just about every single day. It’s phenomenal. Unreal, and it has made it obvious that I am pursuing my life’s calling.
What I’ve done over the years is make a number of mental notes about these students. Specifically, the most successful students. The ones who are making thousands and thousands of dollars because of my trainings. What exactly did they do? Why did they see more success than others? What has been their secret sauce to success?
I can really boil it down to five different success factors. If you nail these five factors, you too will see success.
The first one is having a strong Desire to Learn. And I want to give you a little data about how I figured this one out. Inside the tax sale academy, we have a tracking system that allows me to see the time each student has spent on the various trainings we offer. The most successful students spend, on average, 5 times longer on the materials in the academy. This means that they review every single piece of training content and some of it is reviewed multiplied times. Now, I’m not sitting here telling you that you must join the academy, and you must go through the trainings and you must watch everything I watch. But what I am here to tell you is that the data I have demonstrates that a strong desire to learn is a prerequisite to being successful in this business.
The same students have also told me about their efforts to learn outside of the academy. They do everything I recommend – they learn about their local areas, analyze the laws, go to auctions, talk to other investor, they ask questions. They have the curiosity and a drive for that curiosity inside of them to learning. When I look at the numbers of those in the academy, specifically the percentage of the academy cokpelte, it’s quite shocking. I can almost tell you who will be the most successful. And while it does have to do with our trainings, of course, it illustrates to me that these same people are putting forth that effort trhougout the business. The drive to learn, that’s number one.
The next one is that they have and are building constant forward momentum. It’s easy to get all pumped up about this business the day you first come across this business. Then a day passes and that excitement begins to wane. After a couple of weeks, you forgot about it entirely. Obviously, this is something that happens with a number of things in our lives. Think New Years’ resolutions for example. I did a podcast a while back on building your momentum and I highly suggest it.
In short, the most successful students that I have are doing something just about every single day related to tax sale investing. It could be watching triaing videos, going to auctions, researching properties, reading news articles, something . . . anything. And they’re forward momentum never stops. After close to two decades in this business now, I am constantly working toward continuing my own forward momentum. How can I learn more? What can I do better or more efficiently? How can I push forward? How can I make my business grow? Get momentum and gain momentum by constantly being involved in this business. Seek out things to do, to learn, to put into action. And do it continually.
The next one is that they are detail oriented. This is something that many people struggle with when they’re starting out. Usually it’s simply because they don’t know how detailed they should be. Some students see a property, after their research, as a white house on 2nd street that is worth $100,000. The most successful students, however, see it as a white mid century modern that is 1812 sf, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, with a two car carport, that was reroofed 7 years ago, has the original air conditioning unit, with a value of $100,000 and is on 2nd street, which is inside the area’s best school district where homes sell 42.5% faster than the rest of the county and even faster in the months leading up to a new school year, and better yet, it’s just outsie of the historic district so you don’ t have to worry about historical property restrictions for everything, but you still get to use all the amenities like the best parks in the area.
See the difference there? They both said it was worth $100,000. They agreed on that. But the most successful student went into incredible detail about the property. They knew square footage, they knew about the major mechanical items, about the school districts and how quickly properties sell there. This is all public record for the most part. It’s at the fingertips of whoever wants it and knows where to find it, yet, many new students fail to put forth the effort to find it, while the most successful ones do.
And obviously, that’s just one example of how detail oriented they are. I’ve got students that have created genius marketing plans, others who know tax sale laws as good or better than I do, others who have created their own proprietary softwares to invest in tax liens, these students know details. It’s not just “tax sale investing” to them. It’s an actual business. It’s a machine. It’s a process. It’s success that is driven by the understanding of details.
Learn, learn and learn somemore. Then if you screw up, learn some more. There is no easy was to become detail oriented. The best thing you can do is to learn everything you can about everything you’re doing in this business.
Another key trait is that my most successful students are very flexible. In real estate, there are a lot of emotions that are involved. There is a lot that is out of your hands. If you get into this business looking for a specific house that you have a specific plan for, where you’ll make a specific amount of money, you’re going to be highly disappointed when that doesn’t happen. A couple of years ago one of my students did incredibly well with a condo he purchased.
Made something like $16,000 off of it within a month or two. He took that money and bought a small mobile home that he paid $10,700 for. It was supposed to be an easy flip where you could double his money within a matter of weeks – BUT, it was occupied. It was being lived in by the son of the former owner who lost it. That person had apparently lived there for an extremely long time, but understood he didn’t have any say any longer since his father lost it. Long story, short, he ended up staying as a renter for this property. Last I checked, he is paying $650 per month to stay there. That’s a 73% annual return. Try getting that outside of tax sales, right?
Here’s how the situation could’ve played out: The investor could’ve forced the tenant out. The tenant could’ve destroyed everything, ripped out the cabinets, HVAC, water heater and whatever else he could take to a scrap yard. Then the investor would be stuck with an empty, beat up house that needs to be gutted and remodeled, that is likely going to cost more than the original investment. BUT, because of his flexibility he actually is doing incredible well with it.
This is just one example. Others include students who were so focused on homes and didn’t want to touch vacant land, but then they realized that there was a vacant properites they could make some money off of. The ended up making lots of money because of their flexibility.
Perhaps it’s the area you’re investing in, the strategy, whatever it is, tax sale investing is a fluid always changing business. The process and laws remain the same, but the rest required flexibility! Learn how to always ask yourself if there is another way, if there is aother options. And you’ll be surprised that you might actually end up making MUCH more money and having much less stress and aggravation while you do it.
The last things that I’ve noticed amongst my most successful students is their optimism. And this one really almost shocks me. Let me give you an example . . . just about every single tax sale investor on planet earth who’s been in the business for more than a month or two will at some point attend a tax sale and not get a single property. Nothing. The least successful students will see it as a road block – it will be a reason for them to quit, question or become apprehensive and start back peddling about this business. The most successful students will see it as a learning experience. They’ll use it as a way to learn the process, meet other investors, and grow. They see it as just a step in the right direction.
Did you see what happened there? Same exact situation – didn’t win or wasn’t able to buy a property. But two entirely different takeaways – quit, get frustrated, or use it as an opportunity. Depending on your level of optimism, you’ll choose option A or option B.
That optimism also tends to fuel the other things we discussed today. When you’re optimistic, you’ll generally WANT to put in the effort and work required to be successful. You’ll WANT to learn the details, to know what you’re doing, to learn how to be flexible, constantly be building momentum. You’ll WANT to do all of this stuff.
Those who lack optimism do this stuff because they HAVE to. They HAVE to read the stupid laws, to stare at a compute to research, they have to go to an auction. Your optimistic mindset looks at these things and everything else in this business as an opportunity. I GET to, not a I have to. You get to do all of those things in order to bring the opportunity in front of you. Be optimistic or get out of this business, that’s all there is to it.
Thank you so much for joining me today. I’m so thankful for the opportunity to teach you about this incredible business. I’ve got countless resources available for you in the show notes below this episode. If you’re looking to get started right now, you can head to taxsaleacademy.com – grab your free copy of tax sale playbook or click that join button to take advantage of our most comprehensive step by step training.
As you’re probably aware, I’ve produced more free trainings on tax sale investing, including this podcast, than anyone else in the world. In exchange, I’d be so grateful if you would take just a few seconds out of your day to leave us some positive feedback on whatever platform you’re listening to us on. It means a lot to us and we read every single feedback comment and notice each five star review.
Thanks again for listening, and we truly hope this has helped.
Take care,
Bye bye.