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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, and founder of the tax sale academy.
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.
Today’s podcast is a very special episode. We’ll be discussing the top three barriers to entry and how you can overcome them in today’s podcast.
The truth is that tax sale investing really only has these three barriers to entry. And they can be overcomed rather easily.
Alright, let’s get to it.
The first one is probably the most obvious one, which is money. When you’re investing in tax defaulted real estate, you are doing just that. You’re investing your money. And for a lot of people, this statement alone is enough for them to run the other direction. Yes, it takes money to make money when it comes to tax defaulted real estate.
But, hear me out. First off, it doesn’t have to be a lot of money. You don’t need $50,000 or $100,000 or anything like that when you get started. If you don’t believe me just listen to the podcast titled The Best Day of My Tax Sale Life. Even though that was an abnormality, you must understand that you can get in fairly inexpensively in many parts of the country. Now, inexpensive could mean $10,000, $5,000, $1,000 or maybe even $500 or less. Different parts of the country cost different amount of money, but the opportunities do exist.
And secondly, it actually doesn’t even need to be your money. While it makes everything easy to be able to stroke a check, you don’t really even have to if you don’t want to. There are loads of ways to buy using OPM or other people’s money if you want. We’re talking about using credit cards, bank loans, partners, putting together a fund of sorts or even using your IRA account. So there are definitely ways to invest in tax defaulted real estate without needing lots of money or really any money.
The second barrier that I hear is the time investment. Yes, tax sale investing takes time. There is no way around it. I wish I could say that I could just make money magically appear for you, but, well, I just can’t. It does take time. It takes time to obtain tax sale auction lists, to research those properties, to place bids, to attend auctions, to market properties and to sell those properties.
BUT. And it’s a big BUT. If you know what you’re doing you can do everything so efficiently that you can invest only on the weekends, the evenings or whenever you have spare time. There are plenty of ways to easily obtain tax sale lists online. You can research those properties on a variety of different websites very quickly. You can even use Google Maps to get an aerial view and a drive by type visual of the property. From there, you can often times place proxy bids whenever you want that will work for you at the auction. You can even start advertising these properties and marketing them in a way where you can sell them just as easy, if not easier, then when you purchased them. The fact is, that it is VERY EASY to make time to become a tax sale investor. In fact, I can almost guarantee that everyone listening to this can somehow find a few more hours every week to work on their tax sale business.
The third barrier is probably the most crucial one which is knowledge. Tax sale investing can be a complicated business. When I was at an auction a few days ago I overheard a nice lady talking with an older gentlemen. It was quite obvious that they had never been to the auction before and had no idea what they were doing. One didn’t even know if they were selling tax liens or tax deeds.
The problem is that there just isn’t any education. Some county’s will provide a fairly simple introduction to the tax sale process and maybe a frequently asked questions type page, but most counties won’t provide too much information. They’re afraid they’ll say something that’s incorrect or their county attorney has told them not to answer any questions. I always enjoy it when I come across a tax sale auction list followed by a few rules written by an attorney followed by the line “Contact a private attorney for any questions about tax defaulted real estate.”
And the deal is I have lots of friends that are attorneys and NONE of them are all that familiar with tax defaulted real estate. They know the basics, but they can’t tell you much beyond that. It is imperative that you educate yourself when it comes to tax sale investing. And there are a few ways you can do that. The first is, yes, directly from the county. Perhaps they’ll provide you some information. Probably not, but it’s worth a shot. The second is from content you can find on the internet. I’ve been doing this a very long time, and unfortunately, a lot of the information out there just isn’t correct. But there are some good resources available if you’re able to sort through all the junk. Another way is through experience. Get involved, research properties, go to auctions, learn about properties, just get started.
Then obviously, the last way is to get formal training from someone who has been involved in tax sale investing for a long time, who has invested in many different states, and who has done it through all of the market cycles. If you can find a person like that in your hometown to help mentor you, do everything you can to get involved with that person. Take them to lunch, buy them coffee, do whatever you can do learn from them.
If you can’t find this person, that’s the exact reason I created The Tax Sale Academy – we have ten training packed modules, action plans, spreadsheet downloads, workshop recordings that are absolute gold, and live weekly workshops for our academy members. We discuss everything you’d ever need to know including how to find and use the different funding sources to pay for your investments that we mentioned earlier and how you can become involved if you’re short on time. There really isn’t a better resource for tax sale investors then what we offer at The Tax Sale Academy.
So those three barriers to entry, money, time and knowledge do tend to hold many people back. But as you can see, they don’t need to. There are very easy solutions for each one of them as we’ve discussed.
That’s it for today’s podcast guys. If you’d like more information on funding your investments, using your time more efficiently, or of course the detailed trainings on how you can become a successful tax sale investor, be sure to visit us at TaxSaleAcademy.com. That’s TaxSaleAcademy.com. And while you’re there, be sure to grab your free copy of Tax Sale Playbook – which is the ultimate guide to buying and selling tax defaulted real estate and will really help you to get started.
Before I sign off guys, I’d also like to ask you a favor. We provide loads 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.