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Recently someone contacted me with a very “valuable” lien that they had for sale. They didn’t have the money to foreclose on the lien and wanted either to sell it or partner with someone on foreclosing it. (Have someone else hire a lawyer to foreclose on the lien and share in the profits). When I checked into the property, I found out that it was a vacant piece of land with little value, and the lien holder had already invested more than $16,000.00 into this lien. They had paid subsequent taxes over a few years and when they stopped paying the taxes the lien was struck off to the municipality.
Investing in tax lien certificates can be a safe, lucrative, and accessible investment.
I finally figured out why I’ve been successful at investing in tax lien certificates, but have not been very successful at other types of real estate investing. All this time I thought it was just because there’s less money needed for tax lien investing than there is for most other types of real estate investing. But now I think that I’ve found out the real reason. It’s my negotiating and communication skills, or should I say lack thereof.
Tax liens are said to be a good investment, but what is that makes them so profitable? To answer this question, you have to get a bit familiar with the basics of tax liens. In the following lines, I shall try to gather all the most important things a person must know before getting involved with such a thing as tax liens.
Whether tax lien investing or tax deed investing is better for you depends on the state that you live in and what your goals are. If you are looking to pick up property under market value than you are better off with tax deeds than with tax liens. If you do your homework and purchase tax liens on good properties, the chances of foreclosure are slim.
In Part I of this series I’ll discuss why I think this is a perfect time to get started in tax lien investing and in Part II of this series I’ll talk about why real estate auctions are a great opportunity for investors that have more cash available.
A lien is a legal claim over property that must be paid before selling the property the lien is on. Understanding liens is important when you make get a car loan, a mortgage, or do not pay your taxes or mechanic’s bills. Consensual liens are not a problem for you or your credit rating in most cases. This is what happens when you take out a loan when purchasing a car or house. It is like the car or house is used as collateral for the loan.
Once you've completed the first three steps in the process of building your profitable tax lien portfolio, you can progress to step four to building your profitable tax lien portfolio, which is doing due diligence on the properties in the sale. This is the most important step in the process and whether you do this properly or not could mean the difference between being extremely profitable and losing money. Read this article to find out why.
I believe that 2009 is the opportune time, both to get involved with tax lien or tax deed investing, if you've been sitting on the fence and to purchase investment real estate. The problem that I have found in learning how to invest in real estate without getting burnt is, that there are tons of programs out there.
Many people think that approaching the IRS to ask for a release of Lien is a negative or scary experience. Let's really think about what we're doing here. If you have obtained a property with a hefty tax lien, do you think you should really approach the IRS directly?
You must be wondering what this foreclosure thing is all about. The answer to this question is not a simple one, but once you come to terms with the procedure, you will see that it is not a too complicated thing.
There are two types of tax lien sales: the deed sale which sells the property outright, or the more popular tax lien certificate sale. In a tax lien certificate sale, the buyer does not purchase the property. They only purchase the right to the lien for the amount of taxes owed.Since tax liens are generally purchased for pennies on the dollar, they are a relatively safe form of real estate investment, irregardless of sudden downturns in the market.
Teaching you what tax liens are, how you can obtain them and include them in your real estate investment strategy, and how they have the potential to make you alot of money and are safer than most investments because of their win-win situation.
How much money is enough? If you're using tax lien investing as a way to invest for the future, then you can get started with a couple of thousand dollars. But if you want to create an income from tax lien investing than you need to invest much more.
If you use money from a Roth self-directed IRA, and you do not take any withdrawals until retirement age – you do not pay any taxes on your profits! So if you are using tax lien or tax deed investing as a way to save for your retirement, you need to look into this.
First of all, let's set things straight about the meaning of a lien, that is in terms of law: a lien is a way of securing the payment of a debt or performance of some other obligation, by means of granting a security interest over an item of property.
When you use your home as the collateral to get a loan, your lender will have a lien on your property. What does this mean and what are the risks involve when someone has a lien on your property? You need understand it before you make up your decision to pledge your home as the collateral to get money from a lender and you need to aware the consequences of failing to repay the money.
Due diligence is the most important step in the process of investing in tax liens or tax deeds. Whether you do this correctly or not could mean the difference between being extremely profitable or loosing your investment. Learn more...
Recently one of my clients asked me what I thought of one of a book about tax lien investing. The book that he asked me about is one that I do recommend on my web site. The name of the book is Profit by Investing in Tax Liens, by Larry Loftis. The problem with books about investing in tax liens and tax deeds is that every state is very different and there is no book in print that I’m aware of that does justice to every state in the U.S. My goal in this article is to give you a short review of some of the books that I’m familiar with and point out the pros and cons of each one.
In this article, I want to try to answer the questions that were asked most often but not addressed in my free video course. I especially like to answer questions that start out with the words "How do I..." or "How can I ...". This type of question shows me that someone is really interested and is ready to take action. So here goes...
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