Transcript:
Hey there, it’s Casey denman with TaxSaleAcademy.com and welcome to our weekly tax sale tip segment. Before we get to this week’s tip, if you are interested in learning more about tax defaulted real estate don’t forget to subscribe to our channel and also to check out the links in the video description.
Today I want to give you a little tip that I often use myself: I’ll simply ask, why is this property here? By doing this, it forces me to kick my research into over drive. To take the few extra steps required to make sure I’m thorough.
When you compare a tax sale list to any other list of real estate, you will have a significantly higher concentration of junk properties. Say you pulled 100 different properties at random from the county database. You might have one or two that are junk properties. Now, take 100 tax sale properties and you could have 20, 30, 40 that are junk properties. And what I mean by junk is that they are either useless or worthless.
As you likely know a piece of real estate that is being sold due to tax foreclosure went through that entire foreclosure process because the owner failed to pay their taxes on the property. They got a tax bill and simply didn’t pay it. I take it as a challenge to determine IF it was due to something concerning the property. Some of the time, the owner intentionally failed to pay the property taxes. If you owned something that was worthless or useless, then why would YOU pay the taxes on it? What value do you get out of paying the taxes if you can’t use the property? That’s the mentality many owners have.
Now, let me back up a touch here. I want you to know that there are absolutely extremely valiable properties at tax sales. There are also some very incredible deals at tax sales – I’m hearing about many of them throughout the country from members right now. But, research is such an integral part of the tax sale business. It’s pretty easy to have something catch your eye, do surface level research, get excited and then go buy it. And sometimes that might work out for you.
But the issues that I see take place involve just that – excitement, surface level research and then buying. The problem is that the deep, thorough research was not there. Some people spend more time researching what restaurant they want to eat at, than researching the property they’re buying. There is much more too it than simply reviewing a property assessor’s report.
So that’s where this tactic comes into play. You can view the report, do all the surface level stuff and think, this looks good so far. And then that is where you ask yourself, so why is this prpoperty here? It could be that the owner died, moved away, doesn’t want the property and countless other things related to the person and not the property. But it could also be that the property is in bad disrepair, that there are access issues, that it has contaminated soil, that the property is unbuildable, and the list goes on and on. I’ll almost make the assumption that something is wrong with the property and I should NOT buy the property, until I have proven myself otherwise.
So, this week’s tip is to determine WHY the property is here in the first place. As you research properties, in the back of your head constantly ask yourself, WHY is this property here. Many times, you’ll find your answer. Sometimes, you won’t when the property is there from personal issues or issues not related to the property. And when that happens, THOSE are the properties to jump on.
I truly hope that this week’s tip and all of our videos here on YouTube have helped you out. If so, don’t forget to click that thumbs up button and subscribe to our channel. Thank so much for watching. Take care and we’ll see you next time!