How to Learn

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.

In today’s episode I want to help you get started in this business in a manner where you can avoid information overload and information overwhelm. Tax Sale Investing is a very simplistic business. It’s also a very complex business. We can understand the principles of the business. We can summarize the business in one or two short sentences. But, we all know it’s much more complex than that. We must learn processes, laws, strategies and so much more. Then when we get involved in this business and we begin our research, the first time you see a list of 200 or 300 properties you’ll likely panic. There so much in this business that can overwhelm us.

As a trainer, this is something that I failed to realize originally. When I launched The Tax Sale Academy, I didn’t take into account that my learning took place over a decade at that time, and is still taking place close to two decades later. If you work at a craft diligently for that long, you’re likely to become good at it. But I was trying to teach new investors a decade worth of information without a real roadmap. After working as a private coach for a few of these students and within a year of launching the acacdemy back in 2011, I quickly changed the structure of how I taught in order to solve this problem.

Too many people start down a path and get paralysis by analysis, which is where you’re so overwhelmed you fail to take any action. And that’s the last thing I want.

I’ll provide some strategies, but as with anything, you must break it into small manageable pieces with very clear intentions. It’s just like writing a book – when I wrote Tax Sale Playbook, I told myself I would start with a basic outline. Then I would break it into bullet points. Then more bullet points with notes. Then I would write a page or two. Then I’d finish one chapter and begin the next. Eventually, I wrote the entire book. Had I just sat down with the intention to do nothing but write the entire book without getting out of my seat, I would’ve never even started, much less ever finished.

So let’s talk about how we can break down the learning aspect of this business.

If you’re just starting out, learning is going to be paramount to your success. That’s the reason the tax sale academy exists, the reason I have this podcast, and so many videos. Learning is everything, but where do you start? Inside the academy we have a 30 day or 30 part challenge which takes you step by step 1 through 30. If you’re learning on your own, develop some similar system on your own.

I’m a strong believer in the psychological aspect of having everything written down and planned out. Take everything I’m about to discuss and schedule it out however it works best for you. But make sure it’s outlined and ready to go in an easy to follow format. And I’ll provide some pointers, but don’t be afraid to break it down into incredibly small pieces. As small as necessary so that you know you will actually accomplish it. That’s the key.

I’d start out with an introductory type day. Spend a couple of hours just search county websites, reading FAQ sections, scanning auction results, reading rules, that kind of stuff. The idea here is to familiarize yourself with this business. To get you started, get you moving forward.

From there, study the process. Learn directly from a county resource. Call the county, read their site, go over their rules again. This step is to just get a 30,000 picture of the actual process that is used. What happens the moment a tax payer is late. When is a lien filed? When is it too late to redeem? When does the property get sold? How is it sold, where is it sold? What’s it sold for. After this step you should know the process from the taxes being one day late until the property is sold or goes unsold at the after and beyond. Understand the process inside and out.

Then learn how to get and read tax sale lists. In some areas it’s extremely easy to both get them and to read them. In other areas, it’s very difficult. Go through a variety of counties locating their tax sale lists. If you can’t find them, then make a few phone calls and ask when their auctions are held and how you can get a list. Take the time to study that list, what everything means and how you can efficiently read through it as you begin the next part of the process. . .

Which is to begin the research phase. This is something that can’t be discussed in a podcast and truthful isn’t something that should be taken lightly. It’s something that you must be diligent at and you must plan on investing a substantial amount of time into learning. I’ve said it before but your research equals your results.

If I had a few suggestions on how to break this down, I’d start with the property appraiser’s website in the county the property is located in. With a few rare exceptions, every piece of real estate has taxes. The taxes on this real estate are based off the improvements and other characteristics of the property. This information is then logged into the records for that property and the tax assess valued and ultimately the taxes are then established. The record for that property that includes the improvements, characteristics and everything else about the property is what’s valuable to us. Find the tax assessor in your area and study these reports line by line.

After you’ve studied the property appraiser’s information, then transition to the next county recource that’s crazy helpful which is GIS. Essentially, GIS is a mapping program on steroids. Picture yourself flying in a plane looking down on a property, being able to press a button that outlines boundaries, showing recent sales, zoning, that kind of thing. Familiarize yourself with every single layer and take the time to learn it intimately. It will be one of those tools that really help you out long term.

After that you’ll want to begin to research the area’s building department resources. Pull up permits for random properties. Learn how to read them. Take a look at any code enforcement notices or anything like that. Figure out how to find and read those as well.

Then browse the county site some more and see what other resources are at your disposal. Take full advantage of those. Browse every single site and click all the buttons. See what everything does. Familiar yourself.

Then it’s time to work on valuing real estate. An appraiser spends hundreds of hours learning how to value real estate. You need to be able to do it in a manner that insures your capital is safe. Spend the necessary time. Learn how to value real estate, learn the different methods used like the comparable sales analysis or the cost analysis methods. This is a big one of course, so make sure you nail it.

Then start researching the laws. Start on a local, county and city level. What laws apply to investors? What laws applies to these types of properties? Do they have weed ordinances or code ordinances that might be an issue? Rental bans? Anything like that. You’ll likely need to spend a few days looking through all of the county and city codes, laws and ordinances as they related to real estate. It’ll be a huge help in the long run.

Beyond that, become an expert at the tax sale law in your area. This is the law that allows us to operate as tax sale investors. This is why we can profit from this incredible business, while helping out our county. These statutes dictate everything and they’re so very important to us. They are everything in your business so make sure you understand them completely!

After that, attend an auction. Sit in the back, listen . . . watch . . . learn. See what’s going on. Be observant. Ask questions of other investors. Be social. Be curious. Use it 100% as a learning experience. Don’t go to buy directly out of the gate, but go to learn. It’s unreal what you can learn just by being in the action.

After that, start researching and learning about the selling phase. How do the agents in your area sell properties? How do other people sell properites? Now, how can YOU sell properties? Take the time to explore the different selling methods, such as ebay, craigslist. Learn, learn and learn some more.

That’s what this entire episode is about. The fact is that these are just some of the things you must learn and these are only a few examples of how you should break down your learning process. I’ll get questions all the time from new investors who have put the cart before the horse so to speak. They’re so worried about the type of deed they’ll be using when they sell the property, before they even understand anything about tax sale title clouds.

Go through the process in some sort of order, like we just outlined. And break down each step of that process into manageable tasks. You should be concerned with selling a property if you don’t understand how to buy it in the first place, right? My suggestion is to do something every single day. If you don’t join the academy, just find a relevant video on your topic. Tell yourself, ok, I’m going to study finding and reading tax sale lists this week. Then watch a few videos, put it into practice on your own and move forward.

I’ve got many incredible resource for you including this podcast and my youtube channel. It’ll be up to you to find the relevant information, but it’s definitely there for you. Just break it off into small, easily digestable pieces, learn it, move on, learn some more, move on and over and over. This isn’t a fast or easy process. It takes time, but that time will be well spent in the long run.