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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.
Alright guys on today’s podcast I want to talk about an important but often overlooked business strategy which is growth. Everyone wants to make that first investment or buy a few tax liens or deeds but they don’t think far enough ahead to think about growth, which is how your business will become sustainable long term. How will you get from your first tax sale deal to your one hundredth tax sale deal. How will you go from the investor struggling to get their first deal to the one who is choosing which ten deals they want to invest in?
I can vividly remember the first few auctions I attended. In fact, I even wrote about it in Tax Sale Playbook, because those experiences changed my life. It seemed like every single bid was a waste of breath. Every time I placed a bid, I was outbid by others in the room. Obviously, my pockets weren’t nearly as deep as their pockets were. I was just hoping time and time again that they wouldn’t be paying attention or just wouldn’t want the specific property that I wanted. Eventually, I placed a bid on a property, then was outbid by one of the regulars. I placed another bid, and heard someone say “just let the kid have it.” Thankfully there were no other bids and that was the first property I bought. It was like the heavens opened up the gates for me. There was such a relief and it was almost comical to the others that I finally got a property after I had been there time and time again bidding with no success.
Within ten years of that struggle to purchase one single property, I grew my business to the point where I would purchase dozens of properties an auction. To the point where I would end up purchasing 27 properties at a single auction and over a hundred properties in a calender year.
That path, that vision is hard for so many people to imagine. But, the truth is, it’s like that in every single business and tax sale investing is no different whatsoever.
So, in today’s podcast, I’m going to give you 5 tips to scale your business.
The first one is the most obvious and that’s the start. Take action and move forward. Even if it means you attend auction after auction for weeks on end before you finally are able to secure your first property. Guys, I get SO Many emails from beginners that tell me they attended one auction and didn’t get a property and their thinking of hanging it up. The truth is that if you are ready to give it up after one auction, this business isn’t for you. It might take 3, four, 5, 15 auctions, I don’t know. But regardless of how many it takes, or how many you have to go to in order to get your first property, you must do it.
Learn what you’re doing first and foremost, then take action. Attend auctions until you get your first property, which is always the hardest. Once the first one is wrapped up, then you’ll have a much easier time on your next property and each one thereafter.
My next suggestion is to cap out locally before you start to really worry about scaling too much. When you attend your home county or a market nearby you, there will be opportunity for you to invest in those areas. Now, the amount of this opportunity available locally will vary depending upon the number of properties available, the competition, your available capital and investment objectives and lots of other stuff. It might be that you aren’t able to purchase a single property in your home market. Or it could be that you might be able to purchase as many properties as you want in your home market.
But whatever the case, for most investors at least, you’ll get to the point where there is only such much opportunity left in your home market. At this point is when you’ll be capped out locally and you’ll have a ceiling on your income. You’ll get to the point where you just can’t make any more money than you making there and it’s time to move on.
Which brings me to our third tip for scaling your business which is to expand your market areas. I’ve said it time and time again, but in the first few years of my career I invested solely in my home market. Eventually, I realized that I was selecting the very specific properties in my hometown that were suitable for my investment objectives. Essentially I was cherry picking the most profitable properties for me. But I didn’t want my income to forever be capped. I wanted to grow. That’s when I decided to invest in the next county over, then the next and the next. Eventually I went out of state. Then to another state and another and another. I went around the country cherry picking the most profitable properties based on my specific investment objectives. The truth is that you might not need to invest in a dozen different states, but when you expand your market selection, you’ll expand and grow your income. There really isn’t much better of a way to scale your business than through expanding the market areas that you operate in.
Our fourth suggestion to scale your business is to reinvest. The more capital you have, the more options you have and ultimately the more income you can have. It’s so tempting for many beginners to pull out the profits from their first few investments to spend, pay off bills or live off of. But the truth is that this money is the most important money for your business. You must reinvest the money time and time again in order to grow your business, especially in the early stages of your business. If you have $1,000 to start and turn that into $2,000, at that same rate you could then turn that into $4,000 and then $8,000, and so on and so forth. Now that’s a very simplified example of doubling your money every time, but the point is the more money you have to invest, the larger the return will be.
Now obviously, if there is some debt you accumulated to cover your first couple tax sale investments, it’s important to take care of that as soon as possible. But don’t be tempted to use the proceeds for outside debt. Likewise, you might want to go full time at some point which is awesome. But just understand that the income from your tax sale business must more than replace your current job’s income and you MUST take into consideration that you will be reinvesting much of what you make probably for quite a long time.
Speaking of that, my final suggestion is the plan to be in it for the long haul. Now, you can of course, make money in the short term. You can make money fairly quickly after learning what you’re doing, but if you want to scale your business, if you want to build it into a sustainable long term business, then you must plan to be in it for the long haul. I see it new investors attend a few auctions, make a few bucks, and then they disappear. As with any business, it’s extremely important that you stick with tax sale investing in order to rally reap the benefits from it. This is not a get rich quick business, but this is instead a business that can be sustainable for decades into the future and can build an incredible lifestyle for you and your family.
So there it is guys. Those are my five suggestions on scaling your tax slae business. Take action, you have to get started. Then get to the point where you cap out locally. From there, you need to expand market areas. Then you must reinvest your proceeds and finally, plan to be in it for the long haul
This is an incredibly fun and rewarding business and if you follow those five suggestions you’ll be able to build an incredible business as you move forward.
That’s it for today’s podcast guys. If you’d like more information on investing in tax defaulted real estate, including trainings on to solve all title issues, be sure to visit us at TaxSaleAcademy.com. That’s TaxSaleAcademy.com, and don’t forget to get your FREE copy of my newest book, Tax Sale Playbook. Just cover shipping and we’ll get it in the mail to you.
And before I end, I’d like to ask for a quick favor from you. We provide lots of completely free training for you guys. All we ask is that you’ll subscribe to us and provide a like or positive rating to let us know you’re enjoying the content and you find it useful.
Take care guys and make it a successful day.
See ya!