When I started in this business in 2002 I didn’t know (or care) about the so called “market cycles.” But by 2008, after the US real estate market crashed, it quickly became the ONLY thing I thought about. I’ve been through the best and the worst of the market cycles. And I can tell you this: Without a doubt, you can make money in this business no matter where the cycle is at, if you have the proper strategy. Watch this video on how the 2008 recession changed my business and ultimately, my life.

Transcript:
Hey Everybody, Casey Denman here from Tax Sale Academy.com. Today, I’ve got a raw story for you guys. A story that I don’t enjoy telling, but is necessary. We’re going to go back in time a little bit. We’re going to step back to early 2008. Actually we’re going to go back even farther than that.

A few months out of high school I got into real estate around late 2002. I was an agent and long story short I started investing in Tax Defaulted Real Estate. After about a year and a half I started to do extremely well. Like ridiculously well. The timing, however, couldn’t have been better. While I didn’t realize it at the time and thought I was just some sort of genius, we were entering a real estate boom. I’d routinely make $15-20k off a deal and we’ll just say I was doing many many deals.

As I wrote in Tax Sale Playbook, I was a 21 year old kid making mid six figures and on top of the world. Paid cash for my house, bought the most expensive truck at the dealer and I thought I was living the life. I didn’t save as much as I should’ve and kept dumping money into my real estate investment business. The truth was by this time, with the exception of the first year, my entire adult life consisted of me making an unreal income in real estate.

After a couple of years, however, my income started to slowed down. Then, in early 2008, it stopped entirely. By mid 2008, my expenses, even though I had full control over them and they were minimal by that time, they were totaling more than my income. You don’t need to be a CPA to understand that this isn’t a good thing. I lived off the savings that I did have until that disappeared as well.

You see, my life, my business was investing in tax defaulted real estate. That’s what I did. I flipped properties non stop, all day long. And I did well. So well, that’s all I cared about. I worked like heck to do as many deals as possible and when the recession came, that all I knew how to do. So, like what was I going to do, go get a job? When I filled out a resume the job skills section would say “flipping tax sale real estate” and nothing else. I had no money, no income and truthfully no skills.

I remember seeing the so called successes in the areas that I had been investing in leave the business entirely, file bankruptcy, get foreclosed on… some became involved in illegal businesses and went to jail and two that I was familiar with… committed suicide.

There is no doubt that in my business, it was the worst times I had ever experienced.

But they say that the comeback is always stronger than the setback, and this rang true in my case. But it wasn’t without lots and lots of effort and relearning. I spent the next few years rebuilding my tax sale business. It was the only thing I knew how to do – unfortunately, it didn’t work the same way it had in years prior. I couldn’t just go out there and buy a property, flip it without thinking and make 20 grand.

But I was committed to making it work. I knew I had to figure out a way to make it work, even if it meant I went broke trying. And that’s exactly what I did. I literally would put thousands of miles on my vehicle driving from state to state and from auction to auction. I’d buy properties, drive to the cheap motel I was staying at, list them online and resell them before I would ever come back home. If you want to know misery, try being in the NE during December, driving through some rough parts of a city scouting tax sale properties in a vehicle where the heater had broken, after staying the night at a cheap hotel, trying to figure out how to make ends meet. It’s depressing to say the least.

But, I was determined to make money. I was determined to be able to support myself, pay my bills and eventually create lifelong wealth through this tax sale thing, even though we were in the worst real estate depression in the history of our country. And you know what, that’s exactly what I did.

I began to develop strategies, techniques and processes to invest in both tax liens and tax deeds during this time. And I used some market forced creativity to rebuild my cash flow. Understand that these were the most difficult times in my life and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I dealt with so much garbage that I wouldn’t want anyone to go through.

But, eventually I go to a point where the returns I was making were much greater during the down years than in the up years.

The end result, is that market crash in 2008 actually made me a much more refined and successful investor. There are strategies, processes and techniques that we teach in The Tax Sale Academy that will work in all market conditions.

I see the young guys in real estate, or the guys that have only been in the business for a few years, especially those trying to train others and really force myself to keep my mouth shut. It’s impossible to get on Instagram or Facebook nowadays without an 18 year old trying to sell me something that they have where they might be killing it right now, but will eventually become (a) illegal or (b) obsolete. And I don’t want you guys to fall into the same difficulties that I fell into.

Listen, Tax Sale Investing isn’t anything new – it’s been around for centuries. But since there are a lot of moving pieces, you have to learn how to operate in this business before diving in. And it’s important that you learn how to do this in a manner that will prove successful in all market cycles. There’s a downturn in the market coming. It might be in a year, in two years or in five years, but it’s coming. And knowing how YOU can continue to operate and, yes, even grow your tax sale business during this time and fully take advantage of every market cycle no matter if it’s in quote “good” or “bad” for real estate is the absolute key to being successful and building a sustainable long term business.

So guys, there’s my story on 2008 and the positive impact it had on me. I actually go into much more detail about those rebuilding years in the Tax Sale Playbook, which you can get at TaxSaleAcademy.com. The book is free, just cover shipping for us.

Another resource for you guys is my free upcoming webclass, and you can register for it by clicking the link below or going to TaxSaleAcademy.com and clicking on webclass.

That’s it for today guys . . . never forget that the market does cycle up and down and it’s YOUR responsibility to make sure you’re ready to take advantage of it no matter where we’re at in the cycle.

Take care guys, bye bye.