All Forum Posts by: Seth Williams

@Tony Santos  - tax delinquent property owners can be some of the best opportunities you'll ever find. In many cases (though not all), these people are highly motivated to sell simply because they're running out of time. If they don't take your offer now, it's a fairly safe bet that they aren't going to have a lot of options elsewhere (at least, not before the property gets seized by the county). If they did, why wouldn't they just pay off their taxes and list their property for full market value? Given their obvious financial situation, it makes the negotiation process quite a bit easier, because it's not hard to call their bluff.

When I buy properties with delinquent taxes, I always factor the cost of their tax bill into the offer and I pay off the taxes as part of the closing - I just write this into the terms of the purchase agreement (and keep in mind, my offer is usually just a fraction of the property's full market value - so it's not hard to do this).

When I don't want to buy the property myself (but I still know it's a great deal), I'll try to give the purchase agreement a term of 90 days (maybe even 180 days if I can swing it) and then assign the contract to another buyer (I can do this because my contract has an assignment clause in it). My third party buyer is then subject to the same requirements as written in my original contract.

That's amazing to hear about your continued success @Karl James - I applaud you for getting out there and making it happen. It's so exciting to see people putting this stuff into practice!

I think @Dooreuhn Cee is partially right about the construction market. A robust building industry certainly helps, but I wouldn't say it's a necessity. I sold dozens of vacant lots in a in the middle of the worst recession (09 - 11), in the worst state in the country (Michigan) - and most of them sold in a matter of weeks. Of course, if construction had been hotter, I probably could have sold them for even more...  but a slow building housing market didn't mean I couldn't find success. It just meant I had to work a little harder and offer better terms to find the buyers who wanted what I was selling. A little extra creativity and push can go a long way.

I would definitely agree that finding cheap land is usually the easy part, it's the selling side that takes real patience and persistence. That being said - I've almost never had a property that didn't sell eventually (and make a decent profit along the way). The right buyer is always out there somewhere, it's just a question of whether you can reach them with your promotional efforts and make them aware of the opportunity to own your property in the first place. It doesn't always happen in one month, two months, or even six months, but it always happens eventually if you're persistent and responsive to the market. 

Case in point - I just sold a property last week that I had owned for over a year. I paid around $5K for it and sold it for $20K (and I never actually saw it with my own eyes). I never stressed out or worried that I'd find a buyer eventually. Why? Because I've done this long enough to know that it always happens in time. As long as I can afford the holding costs (property taxes were $66/yr) and I'm reasonably certain about the property's market value (I had estimated it to be worth $20K - $40K), there's nothing to worry about.

Hi @Sonny Sach - I can't post links here in the forum, so I'll email it to you separately. Keep an eye out for it.

Dude, @Tim Herndon - that was a SUPER helpful explanation. I just went through those steps on ListSource and it looks like this is definitely a viable way to pull these kinds of lists. Thanks for the tip!

Great suggestions, thanks for sharing your thoughts @Dev Horn and @Account Closed - I appreciate it!

Anyone else? Feel free to chime in!

Hi @David Hisaw 

You've got a good eye. 

This issue can happen in certain counties - and it's usually because the county isn't keeping their tax delinquent records up to date very effectively (or for some reason, these is a lapse/delay in communication between the county and the list service).

It's probably the biggest downfall of using a service like this. If you're looking specifically for a tax delinquent list, I'd recommend getting it directly from the county in this case (call the county treasurer and see what they can do for you). It's almost always more work and more expensive to do it this way BUT, it's almost always worth the extra effort.

When you're talking about tax delinquent data, these lists literally change every day and it really is important that you're working with information that is up-to-date. If you're seeing these kinds of discrepancies on AgentPro, then don't use the list. It's probably grossly outdated an inaccurate (and for what you're trying to do, this is definitely going to be a problem).

AgentPro can be hit-or-miss with tax delinquent lists, it all depending on the county. At the very least, I think you've discovered one county that is definitely a "miss".

That is so awesome @Victor Noriega - I'm so pumped to see that you took action and made the strategy work for you. Thanks for sharing your story!

Atta boy @David Hisaw :)

Hey All,

On a handful of occasions, I've heard some investors talking about a technique they've used to find cash buyers via direct mail. They do it by pulling a list of all the properties in specified area that have sold for cash (no financing) in the past 12 months, and the soliciting the new owners of these properties (the folks who have presumably bought these properties without the need for conventional financing).

The idea behind this is - they're trying to find a specific demographic of buyers who are highly-liquid (or at least, they've demonstrated high liquidity at some point in the past year) and their intent is to reach out to them via direct mail and present them with a new investment opportunity. 

In essence, it would be a similar approach to finding motivated sellers via direct mail - only this is for the purpose of finding cash buyers (not sellers).

Make sense?

It sounds like this could be a viable approach, but I'm trying to put the pieces together...   my first question is - where does one go to find this list of recent cash sales (i.e. - properties that have sold in the past year with no financing contingency)? Is this kind of information even publicly available? If so, where is the best place to find it and what exactly should I be searching for?

Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks!