Transcript:
8/28/20
Hey there, it’s Casey Denman here from TaxSaleAcademy.com and welcome to our weekly question video. Before we get to today’s question, if you are looking to learn more about tax sale investing be sure to click on that subscribe button so you don’t miss out on future tax sale training videos.
This week question comes to us from username Fire Bug most recently, but this is a question that pops up from time to time. The question is How do I Find online Tax Sales?
And it’s a fantastic question.
The answer is through diligent research. Unfortunately, each county has the authority to sell the properties utilizing vendors and, in many cases, methods of their choice. This means that there is not one go to resource where you an access a list of all online tax sales.
Now, I’m sure someone will mention a couple of the list providing companies that do somewhat exist. And hopefully you’ve seen my videos on these list providing companies previously. In short, you pay a company money or perhaps even provide them with just your email address. In exchange, they will provide you access to a tax sale list. The problem with this is that you are now relying on an uninterested third part to operate your business. If there is a mistake in that list, it’s on you. Not them – it’s your money lost.. If the county’s tax sale list is updated, or the dates are changed, it’s on you, not them – again you’re gambling your money on someone else’s convenience. And with 3,000 properties sold daily, and over 3000 counties it’s simply not possible that these lists are updates in real time. Additionally, many counties don’t post lists in easy to access places, some don’t even post the list online . . . long story short, it’s a huge gamble that I don’t recommend taking.
Alright, back to online auctions. In many cases, you have an elected official who makes the determination as to how they’ll sell their properties. It could be in person, or online. We can dissect that farther and if it’s online it could be through a proprietary software that only they use, it could be through an auction company or it could be through a third party software.
A couple of states operate like Michigan – where you have one vendor who handles the majority of the auctions in the state. It’s a company named Title Check, fantastic company by the way.
In other states you have multiple auction companies that handles the auctions. It might be local auction house that has a website, like Smith Auction House or seemingly generic.
Many states utilize attorney’s to handle the sales. These attorneys will handle anywhere numerous counties.
Then there are websites like Bid4Assets that handle a number of auctions, primarily on the west coast.
You also have websites like RealAuction that handle sales in multiple states.
And with all of these examples, the auction provider could change from one month to the next depending on how the county operates. The point here is that, as beneficial as it might be, there is no single website that simply links up every single online auction in the country. And even if there was . . . again, you would be putting your trust into a private company that likely has zero liability for your losses.
With all that said, it’s actually a good thing. Convenient and easy for you, means that it’s convenient and easy for all 300 plus million people in this country. I’ve always said that the most difficult auctions to find and attend will likely be the most profitable ones.
So, finding online auctions is much like finding tax sales in general. I’d start with the state that you prefer to invest in. And if you haven’t made it this far, I’ve got a state guide linked below that will probably help you. But determine your investment type and subsequently your state. From there, narrow it down to a county or multiple counties. Navigate to the website for the department that handles the sales in that area – could be the clerk, the tax collector, treasurer, the name varies but it’s easy to find on google. On their site, search for the upcoming auction information or the tax sale info page if you aren’t able to locate an upcoming auction page. IF the sale is online, it will likely reference that fact and will usually provide links – some of these links could be to attorneys or auction companies that hold multiple auctions, so take care to find the specific county you’re looking for and then be sure to browse the other counties if that’s the case. If the sale is not online, it will likely reference that as well with times, dates and places for the auction.
If, after a somewhat diligent effort, you have difficulty finding their website or can’t locate any information on it, confirm that you are searching correctly. If you’re confident you are, then just move on – if you can’t find their site in the first place, you can pretty much assume that a county that doesn’t have a website probably isn’t going to try to sell their properties online.
This entire process of determining whether or not a county holds online tax sales will probably take you less than 60 seconds per county. And in some cases, once you get the hang of searching you can probably do it in half that time. So, while it might not be as convenient as a simple one click navigation that you can’t really trust in the first place, it is still extremely easy and quick.
As you can probably tell from this video, I’m a HUGE fan of teaching a person to fish, opposed to simply giving someone a fish. It makes for a much more rounded and successful investor in the long run.
Hopefully this has helped you to locate online tax sales for your business. If you have any questions about this or anything else regarding tax sale investing, feel free to leave it below this video. I’ll definitely answer it and I just might provide a video response like this one.
In the meantime, if you’d like more information on tax sale investing there are a bunch of links below this video, including one to our primary site at TaxSaleAcademy.com where you can grab a free copy of my book or you can join the academy for the most advanced step by step training we offer.
Take care and I’ll see you next time!