Buying Abandoned Houses With Back Taxes - An REI Dream Come True
Tax sale is the last place you want to buy tax foreclosure property. Competition ensures you won't get any bargains. Not only that, but you have to come up with all the cash for your bid right then and there, if you do win. No matter; the owners pay the taxes off during the redemption period most of the time, anyway.
Don't worry - there's a much easier and less risky way to get tax property. What to do is to wait until the redemption period after tax sale has almost expired, and then buy property from the delinquent owners directly. Most of the owners left at this point are forfeiting the property to the government - they don't want it anymore.
This is the best source of cheap, easy property You'll find a lot of heirs, landlords, and people who just bought the property thinking maybe they'd do something with it one day. All of them no longer want the headache of maintaining the property. Want these properties? Just ask for the deed. For their time, you can offer a few hundred dollars. Then, just pay the taxes and you're the new owner! Or, price it low and sell it right away for thousands in profit.Â
Buying abandoned houses with back taxes blows all the other investing strategies out of the water. Has there ever been a better time to get started? Don't put it off another day.
There's an even bigger secret - Â when overbids occur at tax sale, the amount over the taxes is usually due back to the original owner. But the former owners are often unaware of this! The owners rarely figure it out, since they don't live at the property anymore and, thus, don't receive notice from the government that they have the money waiting for them. Â The owner is out of luck if he doesn't get in to get the money in time - in most places the government gets it after a year or so.
But there is some good news. Since this money isn't held by the state, state laws capping out finder's fees don't apply. So that means that you can charge whatever you want as a finder fee for your information and help recovering the money. Since you'll often find overage amounts like $10,000, $20,000 and more, that means an easy six-figure income for you.