Transcript:
Welcome to the Tax Sale Podcast, where tax sale investing is made easy. My name is Casey Denman, I’m a tax sale veteran, the leading tax sale expert, author of The Tax Sale Playbook, founder of The Tax Sale Academy and I’m your host right here on The Tax Sale Podcast.
Thank you so much for joining me on today’s podcast episode. This is a completely free podcast and is brought to you through and because of The Tax Sale Academy. If you’re looking to learn more about investing in tax defaulted real estate, just head to TaxSaleAcademy.com. Again that’s TaxSaleAcademy.com.
Alright, today I’m going to go over the steps to hit a homerun as a tax sale investor. Now this could be an insane deal that changes the direction of your life or it could be one that just adds a few extra grand to your account. But what I’m talking about are the deals that are a better than normal. I’ve done well for a number of years with tax sales. And I’ve hit a number of homeruns over the years. More than most people, probably. I’ve actually created a number of videos about some of them on YouTube, and even some on this podcast. The best day of my tax sale life, the $20 house, the 1 cent transaction, the time I profited over $90k at one auction . . . all of these are examples that I’ve discussed before.
And truthfully I don’t post these to be braggish or anything like that. I do it to show the possibilities of what I’ve been able to do. Naturally, this stuff isn’t around every single day. And I’m not implying in any way, shape or form that you’ll be able to replicate these results. But what I want to do is to show you the process that took me to deals like that. And even if you’re not making $90,000 at one auction, perhaps you use these same exacts steps to make an extra $1,00 or $5,000 or whatever it is.
Another thing to note is that this is not a fast process. You can’t just go out there and say, ok Casey said this is step one, then step two and BOOM I made a million bucks. Hopefully this provides you with the road map of a process that you incorporate over time. This is a process that will hopefully help you to have more of the homerun deals compared to not using this process.
Alright, let’s get to it.
The first one without a doubt is exactly what I just discussed, patience. And some of you are probably going to end this podcast right now. And that’s ok, they’ll miss out on preparing themselves for the future. But I can remember going to auction after auction and getting property after property, but none that I considered WOW, this is amazing type stuff. And then suddenly, after a few years into the business I went to one auction that made me more that I had in the previous six months. Then this started to happen more and more frequently. But tax sale investing is not a game for those looking to get rich quick. This is a business where you can acquire real estate for prices determined primarily by your competition, that you can then use strategies to sell and produce a return from. If you take the time to really work at your business and work on growing it, it will. It’s similar to those who appear to be overnight successes, right? The athletes who came out of nowhere and are now mega successful and well know, who’s back story includes years and years of hardwork and effort those no one writes about. The same can be said of tax sale investing, if you give it the time necessary, if you’re patient with the process then you’ll absolutely see success and you’ll absolutely come across these homerun deals.
The next one goes along with the first, which is timing. And this is such a HUGE part of just about every business who sees strong increases in profits. So much of what we do as tax sale investors actually isn’t controlled by us. And it seems like this is almost tough for many people to understand when they get in the business. Many new investors tell themselves that they want to buy their first property within 30 days. I mean, goals are great, but what if there aren’t anything but landlocked swamp lots available for the first 30 days. Are you really going to buy one of those so you can hit that goal? That’s a little ridiculous. We don’t control the properties that are offered, the competition that’s there and subsequently the prices they’re sold at, we can control quite a bit. So what we have to focus on is the stuff we can control – our bid amounts, our research, our strategies, that kind of thing. The next couple of steps will help increase your odds of having the best timing possible, but it’s all about preparing yourself to be ready when the timing is right. To be ready when that property hits, so you recognize it and can jump on it.
The next one is exposure. And what I mean by this specifically is that you see as many properties get sold as possible. The moment that I expanded my market areas, my profits went up, as did the number of properties that I purchased and considered to be amazing deals. I went from a one county operation, to dozens of counties in many states. And I don’t say this lightly, but my income tripled the moment I did that. And it’s gone up even since. A lot of this is because I would go from one county to the next and pick out those homerun deals. If you’re stuck in one county, you might see, say 100 properties sold. If you go to a dozen counties, you’ll see 1200 properties sold. If 1% are the deal of the century type deals, then you just increase your chances of acquiring one by 12 times over. I can’t even begin to explain to you how much my market expansion increased my business. All of the deals that I talked about earlier, $20 house and that kind of stuff, with the exception of one, they are not local to me. In fact, they’re not even in my state. And beyond that, they are all in different areas. The best deals that I’ve ever gotten were all in different areas because of my exposure to as many properites being sold as possible. The more properties you see auctioned off, the higher your chances are of not only getting great properties and making a great living, but the higher your chances are of getting those crazy good deals.
And the last one that I want to discuss today is your ability to see opportunity. And this is more knowledge driven than tactically driven. If you become the guy who spots opportunity in whatever market you’re investing in, you’ll win. That simple. And let me clarify that just a little: I’m not talking about the same opportunity every other investor in that room sees. Nor am I talking about the so called opportunity that might also leave you bankrupt because it’s so risky. I’m talking about the opportunity that you know you can make work, without a doubt, but others might not see them. Now, many of the transactions that I discussed earlier were huge opportunities because they were just so cheap right. But, I’ve also spent quite a bit of money on opportunities that I saw and no one else did. I once purchased an entire residential subdivision at a tax sale. It was four phases, the first had been developed, built upon and sold. The fourth phase was platted but not developed. The second and third phases were platted, staked, with roads cut and paved, curbs and gutters installed along with a drainage ditch. They were individually parceled yet in the county’s system which was the final step. For many investors, this was a nightmare property, since you couldn’t build on it or even use it in this unfinished state. For me, this was a homerun opportunity to finish a development that someone had already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on. I could simply finish it up and reap the benefits. I actually ended up flipping it to another local developer rather quickly, but this is a great example of an opportunity that I saw and no one else did. Must of what you do as a tax sale investor, if you want to hit the homeruns, will be based on your strategies, your angles, you’ll succeed by your own design. Learn to spot these opportunities and you’ll eventually hit more homeruns than singles.
Tax sale investing is a business that can generate long term sustainable cash flow. It’s an incredible business. And like every business there will be times when you’l have extremely profitable deals or approaches. Using these four steps will absolutely increase your chances on finding the deals that others can only dream of. Be patient, wait for the right timing, go to more auctions, and spot the opportunity when it exists.
I truly hope that today’s podcast episode has helped you. If so, please don’t forget to leave some positive feedback on whatever podcasting platform you’re listening to us on. And as always, if we can help you with your journey to tax sale success there are a number of links in today’s show notes. One of those links will take you to our primary site at TaxSaleAcademy.com where you can join my academy for the most advanced, step by step training that we offer.
Again, I truly hope today’s episode helped. I’ll see you next time and don’t forget to make it a successful day. See ya!