Transcript:
Choosing a Tax Sale Mentor

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 want to talk about finding a tax sale mentor. We’ll be discussing a few different types of mentors today, where to find them and how to properly approach the relationship.

When I started, I didn’t have a mentor. In fact, I was a real estate agent at the time and I could remember walking around the office at the time asking people about this tax sale thing. I was told by every single agent that they didn’t know anything about it. So I went at it blindly. Figured it out some, had some successes, then had many more failures, and it took me many many years, many wasted opportunities and quite a bit of money. When I look back, I simply wish I would have had a mentor of some sort to help me.

There are a few different types of mentors.

One is a true mentor, a local seasoned and successful tax sale investor. This is obviously the choice for many, although it can be somewhat difficult to find. My suggestion is to take a look through the results of the local tax sales and see which names keep popping up. And not just a month or two, I’m talking about 5 or 10 years worth of tax sales. In many areas, they’ll actually list the buyer’s name or their company name which you can then cross reference. Even if they don’t, you can make your own spreadsheet and research the property’s history, noting who the buyer was. In many areas you have folks I refer to as the local moguls, they’ve been their forever, seemingly buy tons of properties and they do well.

If you’re in an area where they have in person auctions, it’s time to go to one and be social. Arrive early, stay late and strike up a conversation. Now, just because I’ve had it happen to me plenty of times, the time to talk to someone is NOT during the auction. Don’t try to them while they are try to focus on what they’re doing so they can make money. Instead, talk to them early or late. In many areas you can tell who the auctioneers know. A lot of times they’ll even call them by their names, I’ve got plenty of auctioneers that see me walk in the doors and we begin catching up right off the bat. Pay attention to what’s going on and talk to those who are the successful ones. But don’t be weird about it – just introduce yourself and ask a few questions.

If you’re in an area where they only have online auctions, which is more and more areas as of late, then it’s slightly more difficult. In this situation, I’d try to find some way to connect with them. Start out with trying to find a mutual acquaintance. Maybe it’s their Realtor, their family, friends, whatever it might be see if you know anyone they know that could make an introduction. If that doesn’t work out, trying sending a letter, email or message to them. We’ll talk about what to say shortly, but just reach out to them and see if you can get a response.

Alright, let’s say you can’t find a local tax sale investor to mentor you. Maybe there are none, maybe you don’t want to put forth the effort to do the things I just mentioned, whatever the reason, let’s say you can’t ifnd a local tax sale mentor. My suggestion is to find a micro mentor. A tax sale investor is someone who does many things. You know the tax sale business, but you also must know how to value properties, how to research them, how to find them, how to estimate repair costs, marketing methods, tax strategies and lots and lots of other stuff. If you can’t find the jack of all trades, focus on finding a mentor that can help you with one specific subject matter. I can nearly guarantee you that you have someone in your life that can help. Maybe it’s your friend that is a builder and he can help you with estimates or what to look for on a driveby. Perhaps it’s someone that is good on a computer – great, they can setup an excel spreadsheet for you. Maybe it’s someone that is good at organization, that’s fantastic. I can promise that if you took out your phone right now and went through it, probably 10 or 20% of your contact are able to help you in some manner. Now, leverage their help and use it.

Ok, there’s one more type of mentor but before we talk about that a common question is what do I say, how do I approach them? Well, unless youre very close with a tax sale mentor or even a micro mentor, you shouldn’t expect an intership type relationship where you follow everything they do. Insetad, you should do your best to help them in any manner you can and in exchange you can hopefully extract a few nuggets here and there that can help you on your quest for success. The more nuggets you extract, the better. But don’t get so needy that they don’t want anything to do with you – this happens a lot believe it or not. Give them their space, ask them to lunch once or twice a month, do whatever you can to promote stuff for them or add value to their lives and in return hopefully you can learn.

Alright, we talked about local tax sale mentors and local micro mentors, now it’s tiem to discuss online mentors. This is the category I put myself in to most people. If you can’t find a local mentor, you can go online and find plenty of people that want to teach you about tax sale investing. And this is concerning to me. I began teaching others because I didn’t have a mentor. I didn’t have a system or a process to follow. When I first started The Tax Sale Academy there was one other trainer in this space – someone who I have tremendous respect for and has got to be in or near his 80s by now. Since then, I’ve seen countless people come into and out of this space. The online training business has become a place where people can walk in with minimal knowledge and because selling courses. I’ve looked at a few of these and for a few grand you can get about an hour’s worth of information. It’s ludicrous. I’ve had multiple, as in more than one, people sign up for the academy spend a month inside, and then start their own training based off what they learned from me. It’s frustrating to see other people taken advantage of.

I could go on a huge rant about all the wannabes out there, but here’s what you need to look for if you are looking for help online:
– Experience. What is this person’s experience? How long have they been in the business? How many states, how many properites, that kind of stuff
– How seasoned are they? Have they been trhough all the market cycles? It’s funny out many so called experts there are when the market is good. But what about when the market is bad? What then?
– Do you like their teaching style? Do you resonate with them? If you don’t like the way someone teaches then you’ll never learn.
– What type of commitment do they have? Some people are experts for one or two months and then they have to go back to their day jobs or something.
– What is their knowledge like? You wouldn’t believe the amount of flat out wrong answers some of these folks give.
– Are they helpful? Do they truly want to help you or are they just looking to take your money? A prime determining factor for this can be determined by the amount of trainings they provide without cost. Signing up for someone’s, in quote, course, just because they hit you with a Facebook or Instagram ad is not the wisest decision.

I could go on and on about finding an online mentor. My suggestion is to do your homework, lots of it, and make sure their legit before signing up. If you’re listening to this episode you probably know my credentials. I’m not saying that if you’re looking for an online mentor that you must signup for the Tax Sale Academy, but use some of our credentials when comparing different programs: Nearly two decades of experience investing in more than 1,000 properties over a dozen states. Licensed real estate agent since 18, broker since 20. Experienced in all aspects of the business. Training business has been around for a decade. Nearly 800 completely free videos, hours and hours and hours of free trainings to help you. I answer around a dozen questions a day. Multiple proven training programs. I spent a year writing a book on tax sale investing that I literally give away. There’s no one on earth that has produced as much training material as I have for tax sale investors. Again, if you’re looking for online help and signup for the academy that’s fantastic, if not, that’s ok too. I’m just providing this information to give you an idea of what to look for – I don’t want you to pay someone to have them teach you what they learned from me last month. Yes it has happened, more than once.

Anyhow, when it comes to mentors, try to find local tax sale mentors first, followed by local micro mentors next and then go online and find traiing platforms that resonate with you. In the end, this is very much a self education type business. YOU must take the steps requires to educate yourself how to properly invest as a tax sale investor. Once you do that, you’ll reap the benefits of that effort for decades to come.

I truly hope that this episode has helped you take a different look at this busnss and the proper way to get started. If it has helped or if any of our episodes have helped, please leave us some positive feedback on whatever podcasting platform you’re listening to us on today.

And if we can be you mentor, just head to taxsaleacademy.com and get signed up.

Take care and make it a successful day. See you next time right here on The Tax Sale Podcast. Bye bye.