We recently went to a freebie seminar on how to make millions by purchasing Florida tax certificates. The sales pitch was that for “only” $2K
they would teach you how to buy tax certificates which had a guaranteed interest rate of 16-25 %.
Here’s the deal.
1.Someone gets behind on their r.e. taxes.
2.The state will let you pay the tax owed and give you a tax lien certificate with a guaranteed interest rate between 16-25% per year.
3. the r.e. owner has 1-3 years to pay you back plus your interest.
4. if the r.e. owner does not pay you off, you foreclose on the property and get a clear title from the state. There are not supposed to be any other liens left on the property when the state grants you a title due to foreclosure with your tax lien certificate. :deal
It sounds way too good to be true, what do you folks think ?
There’s an excellent course on this website called “Texas Houses for Pennies” which will give you a great headstart.
You can also check out a book called “The 16 Percent Solution” (although its information is not very current) at your local Barnes&Noble or other bookstore.
Here’s the deal – why pay someone you don’t know that much money without learning at least something about the field yourself?
I don’t have any vested interest here – I’m not getting a percentage of the course or the book sales (although I was present during its difficult birthing process).
The course is probably your best bet if you’re looking to get started and up to speed quickly.
In Texas, it’s 25% return if redeemed the first year and 50% for the second.
You need to be extremly careful as they can sell tax certs for each year they have not been paid. You may have three/four people holding certs on the same property. You could flat lose your money, or worse. If you just blindly buy cert’s out of state, Yea you could purchase cheap only to find out it’s the country’s third biggest Super Fund site which will cost 30 million to clean up. Thats not something you want to buy unless you have some really big plans and budget to match.
Act like you are walking on eggshells, because you are. It sounds like you need to get much more information and training before you just start buying certs.
In Denton county, they sell the certs the first Tuesday of every month along with the foreclosures at the courthouse steps. Those that don’t sell can be purchased over the counter from the Tax Assessor. To give you some idea of the numbers up here, there were 260 foreclosures in Denton county last month and they had 2 tax certs. You are not going to retire on this. You generally buy these counting on redemption, and MAYBE once a year actually end up with a property. You can’t just buy them and sit back counting days either, there is a process similar to foreclosure you must go through to actually secure the property as deadlines pass. Should another cert holder beat you to it, your wiped out.
LEARN, LEARN, LEARN, then do.
MikeM - We went to the Denton Sheriff’s sale last month, what a joke. They delayed the start of the auction for one person to show. When he showed up late, they started the auction and this same guy ran up every bid to just under the full FMV of the property. Is it really as rigged as it seems or are we too sceptical? There appeared to be a lot of winking and knodding going on and our inclination is to go back next Tues. and see if the same thing happens. What is your take?
My partner and I are there every month with what we have nicknamed the “Denton Five”. These people attend each auction also, and between them they buy about 80% of the properties that sell and don’t go back to the bank. The remaining crowd are mainly spectating.
It’s not really “rigged” per say, but you will get to know these folks pretty well after a year or so. Just going through the auction process of bidding against each other and winning some, losing some. We were kidding around last month about having a “lottery” drawing between us to avoid running bids up on each other by announcing which properties we were there for and sticking to the agreement of selection.
Most are really nice people, then there is the one you are talking about. He is somewhat of a local joke. It would be much more funny however, if he wasn’t running off of a bottomless bag of Egyptian money. He will actually be bidding on a property as he gets out of his car and running to the auction because he’s late, then ask someone sitting there which property he just bid on!!! Of course he gets burned on a regular basis doing this. He is currently stuck with 15 properties that I know of which he paid way, way to much for. I suppose that’s the benefit of a bottomless vault. You will see him trying to peddle these between the Trustee’s auction calls to some of the spectators. Obviously you don’t want anything to do with these properties, or him.
I don’t want to make T. Randle or anyone mad by posting this guys name in a public forum. If you come to this one on Oct 7th, just holler “Where’s MikeM” real loud and I will introduce you to my partner as well as some of the more reasonable regulars. By law, you to can eventually get in on the “fix”, HaHaHa.
Hope to see you there, maybe we will have to change the name to the “Denton Ten or so”.
Unfortunately the information you received at your free seminar was totally incorrect. Florida is a hybrid state where the tax lien is sold beginning at 18% and then bid down by those want to receive it. Many are sold at 1/4%since there is an automatic 5% penalty. After two years upon application for deed a second open deed auction is held. The beginning bid will include any outstanding state and local liens. The winning bid at the second auction owns the property as soon as the sale is recorded.
Hopes this helps.
mtnhu
I have seen and reviewed the information provided at www.gettaxlien.com and it is NOT worth the $2,000 to $3,000 they charge. In fact, I would say that if you take out the useless directory of county names its worth about $50.
I am sorry but this company is one of the reasons the tax lien and tax deed investment area has a ‘black eye’.
Just use you common sense and don’t pay anyone that much for advice in this area.
Best of Luck and call me if you have questions: 713-961-1134