Decide if you want to be a tax lien investor
Even before you choose to tax on tax lien investing, you should understand the rewards involved as well as the risks.
You need to understand a few common things about tax lien investing, like the difference between a tax deed and tax lien county or state and what bidding on the premium is. Once you have a basic grasp of the basics of investing in tax liens, you should decide if this is something that you could be passionate about.
If you decide that this is something you want to get into, then proceed to Tip #2.
Find A Good Website For Purchasing Tax Liens
Locating a website to buy tax liens is actually easy to do. Tax liens are sold by county so you should pick a county you want to invest in, then locate the website for that county.
Another option, use the famous google search engine and enter the county that you are interested in, followed by "tax collector". If I wanted to buy tax liens in California, I would type in "California Tax Collector" in the Google search engine.
This step will give you a lot of results to filter through.
Register With Online Tax Lien Directories
Note: You will only be able to register in certain counties as not all counties have online tax lien sales.
You should be prepared to provide personal information about yourself such as your social security number, name, address, etc. You may also need to fund or provide funding for your account which will be used to purchase the Liens if you win a successful bid.
Understand the Rules Of Bidding For Tax Liens Online
There are quite a few ways to bid during tax lien sales auctions. One of several bidding methods will be used if more than one investor bids on the same property.
Depending on the laws of the county, the bid winner will be determined by one of the five methods below. Bid Down the Interest.this is where several investors negotiate to see who will accept the lowest interest rate among all the bidders. In some cases the interest rate can go as low as 0%, but this is rare.
Premium.Here investors (bidders) bid on the face value of the lien or premium. The additional premium may or may not earn interest, and (in some states) the investor might not get the additional premium back if the lien is redeemed. Colorado is a state that uses the premium bid method.
Random Selection.With this method, a bidder will be selected randomly from all the bidders. Typically a computer is used to select bidders at random, but this can vary from county to county. Nevada is a state that uses Random selection.
Rotational Selection. With this method, the first lien will be offered to the investor holding bid ticket number one. If the first bidder passes on the lien, the next bid ticket holder gets priority of the lien. However, bidder number one will not be offered another lien until their ticket number comes up again in the rotation. The bidding process continues in this sequential way until all the liens have been presented.
Bid Down the Ownership. A few states use this method of bidding on the ownership. The winner is the investor willing to accept the least % ownership on the lien. An example of this would be a case where the winning bidder only owns 60% of a tax lien. If the lien is not redeemed, the bid winner only receives 85% ownership of the property with the remaining 15% owned by the original owner. Not many investors will buy liens in states that use the ownership method.
So in the even there are multiple bidders on the same tax lien, the random selection method will be used. Liens not sold at auction are considered "struck" (or sold) to the entity (usually the county) conducting the auction. Liens not sold at auction will then be available for "over the counter" purchasing.
Even before you choose to tax on tax lien investing, you should understand the rewards involved as well as the risks.
You need to understand a few common things about tax lien investing, like the difference between a tax deed and tax lien county or state and what bidding on the premium is. Once you have a basic grasp of the basics of investing in tax liens, you should decide if this is something that you could be passionate about.
If you decide that this is something you want to get into, then proceed to Tip #2.
Find A Good Website For Purchasing Tax Liens
Locating a website to buy tax liens is actually easy to do. Tax liens are sold by county so you should pick a county you want to invest in, then locate the website for that county.
Another option, use the famous google search engine and enter the county that you are interested in, followed by "tax collector". If I wanted to buy tax liens in California, I would type in "California Tax Collector" in the Google search engine.
This step will give you a lot of results to filter through.
Register With Online Tax Lien Directories
Note: You will only be able to register in certain counties as not all counties have online tax lien sales.
You should be prepared to provide personal information about yourself such as your social security number, name, address, etc. You may also need to fund or provide funding for your account which will be used to purchase the Liens if you win a successful bid.
Understand the Rules Of Bidding For Tax Liens Online
There are quite a few ways to bid during tax lien sales auctions. One of several bidding methods will be used if more than one investor bids on the same property.
Depending on the laws of the county, the bid winner will be determined by one of the five methods below. Bid Down the Interest.this is where several investors negotiate to see who will accept the lowest interest rate among all the bidders. In some cases the interest rate can go as low as 0%, but this is rare.
Premium.Here investors (bidders) bid on the face value of the lien or premium. The additional premium may or may not earn interest, and (in some states) the investor might not get the additional premium back if the lien is redeemed. Colorado is a state that uses the premium bid method.
Random Selection.With this method, a bidder will be selected randomly from all the bidders. Typically a computer is used to select bidders at random, but this can vary from county to county. Nevada is a state that uses Random selection.
Rotational Selection. With this method, the first lien will be offered to the investor holding bid ticket number one. If the first bidder passes on the lien, the next bid ticket holder gets priority of the lien. However, bidder number one will not be offered another lien until their ticket number comes up again in the rotation. The bidding process continues in this sequential way until all the liens have been presented.
Bid Down the Ownership. A few states use this method of bidding on the ownership. The winner is the investor willing to accept the least % ownership on the lien. An example of this would be a case where the winning bidder only owns 60% of a tax lien. If the lien is not redeemed, the bid winner only receives 85% ownership of the property with the remaining 15% owned by the original owner. Not many investors will buy liens in states that use the ownership method.
So in the even there are multiple bidders on the same tax lien, the random selection method will be used. Liens not sold at auction are considered "struck" (or sold) to the entity (usually the county) conducting the auction. Liens not sold at auction will then be available for "over the counter" purchasing.
About the Author:
Want to find out more about the basics of buying tax liens, then visit Dale Poyser's website at to learn about buying tax lien certificates .
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