Getting properties via tax liens/sales

[Wayne Terry]

I am looking to take ownership of property by way of tax sales, or liens. I hear that is a great way to get property for pennies on the dollar. My goal once I get the property is to quickly sell it or maybe even rent it out. Any ideas? Anyone with experience?

[Morris Lucas]

Originally posted by Don Konipol:

After 30 + years as a real estate investor, private lender, speculator and small developer, I can tell you that many of these hyped systems CAN lead to a highly profitable deal - but - the requirements are always understated by the promoters.

Almost all these "systems", which are actually very common deal types to experienced investors, require the following to be implemented successfully

1- A good deal of cash or access to such (not including mortgage money on property being acquired)
2- Significant directly relevant experience (much, much more than what can be acquired through purchase of the book, seminar or mentoring system)
3- Deal analysis and deal making skills
4- Time - to spend on finding, negotiating, performing due diligence on, etc. potential deals - usually at least 20 hours per week.
5 - Persistence - to evaluate 100 potential deals, talk with countless people, make unlimited phone calls only to have 99% of your work lead to a rejection.

This is why my empirical evidence suggests that the satisfaction rate of those that purchase these systems is way under 10%. In fact the gurus who sell these systems continually emphasize that if the system doesn't work for you it is because it is your fault. Surprising how few buyers ask for success statistics (which none of the system sellers will have or provide) before turning over their credit cards!

I have seen a few guys fail miserably at real estate flipping and I have seen other guys read a couple books, buy a lien, and foreclose on a $60k property. The former probably doesn't happen often....but guess what....WHO CARES!!! If you only get ONE property ONE percent of the time, to me that's a HUGE SUCCESS!!.
I think what Don is saying goes beyond just RE investing.
Most of the folks are not satisfied with the "systems" because they realized you can't go to the auction, do no form of research, bid on a couple houses and get a million dollar property with no effort. The thing is, most people don't want to do ANYTHING above doing 1 or 2 hours of extra work per week.
Restaurants, real estate, stocks, website marketing, ALL these things make people MILLIONS, but they only make a small percent of people millions, because most people HATE obstacles and the thought of the effort required to overcome them, and will give up at the first difficult challenge.(I used to be one of them, lol)
As far as tax liens go, here is my take...thousands of dopes went out yesterday and stood in line to buy a lottery ticket they have one in a 160,000,000 chance of winning.
If all i have to do is find one homeowner in one of 50 states in over 1000
or more counties in each state who will agree to sell me their house....my odds seem great in comparison!
I agree, 99% of ALL entrepreneurship effort mostly is rejection...but the MONEY is in that 1%, baby!!!