Posted by Ronald * Starr(in No CA) on July 09, 2002 at 20:50:08:
Jean-------------
You are talking about the county sale for delinquent property taxes, aren’t you?
The answer for your first question is yes and yes. It depends upon the state. Every state has a different tax sale procedure. I suggest that you read the state law on the collection of delinquent taxes for any state in which you are considering investing.
I think is not as good an avenue as others are to start off. It is a foreclosure sale. In general I do not recommend foreclosure sales for beginners, there are just too many pitfalls. Put your time into more standard investing. Then, when you know how to evaluate properties, how to sell them, and so on, then consider going for foreclosure situations. Also, most tax sale properties are vacant lots and vacant land.
It does not take much money to buy a lot of the properties which come up to county delinquent property tax auctions. Typical might be $300 to $6K. But, remember you are buying vacant land. Do you know how to judge the quality of the vacant parcels? Do you know how to dispose of the properties after you buy them? And many of the properties are being deliberately adbandoned by the property owners. If they don’t want their properties, you might want to be cautious and investigate closely before you buy their don’t-want-it properties.
Also, check with the title insurance companies to find out about the prospects of title insurance for a new buyer of the property as you get it. Some buyers will take a property without title insurance, but many will not. If the buyer has to finance the purchase, the lender is probably going to require title insurance before making the loan.
If you know what you are doing, tax sales can be very good for picking up properties cheaply. I posted about three days ago about my purchasing of a couple of properties at tax resales in Oklahoma State. If you put “134” into the search function at the top of this main bulletinboard forum of the CREONLINE.COM site, you will find my story there.
Update–read after you read the original post:
This morning I talked to my property manager. He has not been able to see the property very well that I got in Lawton. But guessed that it might be worth a littl eover $20K. I hope so, as I paid about $2,800 for it.
There are many posts about tax sales and tax liens on this website. You can search the archives and quickly get a lot of different peoples opinions.
Good Investing*******Ron Starr**************