5 Steps To Buying Profitable Tax Liens

Once you have purchased your first tax lien or liens, you need to take some steps to protect your investment and eventually you collect your profit. But before you protect your investment and profit from it, you first need to prepare to be a successful tax lien investor by taking the steps necessary to buy profitable liens. Here are what I call the 5 STEPS to purchasing profitable tax liens.

Select the Right Place To Invest

So many people ask me, "Where is the best place to invest in tax liens?" Or, "What are the best states to invest in?" But the truth is that the best place for me might not be the best place for you to invest. The best state for you to invest in depends on your answers to these questions:

* Are you looking for a high return on your investment or do you want to own property?
* What state do you live in?
* Where do you like to vacation?
* How much money do you have to invest?
* Are you investing with money from your retirement account or after tax money?
* Are you looking for a short term or long term investment?

If you don't have much money to invest than you really need to be looking at investing in tax liens and not tax deeds or redeemable deeds. If you would like to get the property and not just high interest on your money than you are better off investing in deed states or redeemable deed states. I don't think it's very wise to invest in a state just because they are one of the most profitable places to invest, especially if you live a few thousand miles away and that state is does not have online tax sales. The first thing that you need to do is to find the closest state to you where it would make sense for you to invest based on your answers to these questions.

Track Down the Tax Sale Information

Next you need to get the tax sale information, the bidding procedures for the tax sale, the location and time of the tax sale, the terms of the sale, and the tax sale list. There are resources and tools available to help you with this, but you can usually get the information that you need by calling the party responsible for the tax sale. Usually it's the county treasurer or county tax collector. If you can't the information that way, then there are tax sale list providers that will provide links to the county web sites and provide enhanced tax sale lists for a fee that will cut down the time it takes for you to do the next step.

Evaluate the Tax Sale Properties

This is probably the most important step in the process and involves you doing your due diligence on the properties in the tax sale to see which ones are worth bidding on. When evaluating the properties you need to have a way to track the information for each property. You'll need to know more about the properties in a tax deed sale than you will for tax lien properties. Even for tax lien properties you'll want to know that the property is valuable before you purchase a lien on it. At the very minimum you'll want to know the tax assessment of the property and see what the property looks like from the street. It's also nice to when it was last sold last and what is sold for and whether or not there is a mortgage on it. For tax deed properties you'll also want to know if there are any liens, judgments, or encumbrances on the properties. And for liens or deeds you'll want to make sure that there are no environmental problems. This information can be found online for most states, but sometimes you will have to go to the county assessment office or county hall of records to get the information that you need.

Prepare to Bid at the Tax Sale

Now that you've got the tax sale information and you've done your due diligence and determined which properties you will bid on, it's time to get ready to go to the tax sale. You'll have to register to bid and make sure that you have the proper form of payment for any successful bids that you might have. Make sure that you understand the terms of the sale and bidding procedures and that you complete any necessary paperwork. You'll need a tax ID in order to bid and for tax liens sales you'll need to supply a w-9 form. (Foreigners will need to have a w-8BEN form).

Show Up And Bid At The Tax Sale!

You've done all of your homework and now it's time to show up and bid. If the sale is live and not online make sure that you get there early, in plenty of time to get any updates - of liens or deeds that have been removed from the list, and a good seat. Make sure that you don't have any distractions, it is an auction and things happen very fast. It helps to have a bid sheet with all of the properties in the sale list and the ones that you want to bid on marked with the amount that you're prepared to bid. Do not get carried away and bid more than your pre-determined amount for a property and don't bid on any properties that you did not investigate first! Pay for any successful bids on time or they may be re-bid and you may be barred from future tax sales.
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Follow these steps and you will be successful at purchasing profitable tax liens. For more help with finding out where the best place is for you to invest and for finding the tax sale information see my Tax Lien Investing Basics course at http://www.TaxLienInvestingBasics.com. For more help in finding out about the online tax lien sales see my Buying Tax Liens Online course at http://www.BuyingTaxLiensOnline.com.

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