All Forum Posts by: Stefan K.

I'd just make sure you know the property and have done your due diligence.  I've seen people end up with certificates on property not worth the additional money to apply for the tax deed (FL rules) or start the foreclosure process.  I've only had 2 such certificates - one where another certificate holder applied for the deed and redeemed my certificate and another, very small lien that I'm holding out hope the same thing happens. 

Issue can include land locked vacant lots, condemned or demolished houses, other government liens popping up, flood damage, fire, etc.  When these thing happen before buying the certificate, they should be found through due diligence, allowing an educated decision.  However, under FL rules, you have to wait 2 years before you can apply for the tax deed and in some counties another 1 to 2 years before the tax deed auction takes place.  That means up to 4 years between the initial certificate purchase and the tax deed auction - a lot of stuff can happen in 4 years. 

Good luck!

Hello community.  I'm a tax lien investor in Florida and 95% of the time the liens are paid and I earn my interest.  On 2 rare occasions, no one bid on the property at the tax deed auction and the properties were struck to me on one and my business partner and I on the other.  We've learned a lot through this experience, but now we're facing an issue with getting the real property title for the property.  Has anyone dealt with this in Florida and how did you accomplish your task?  We've spoken to the county and to the state and neither has been much help.

Thanks in advance!

@Gabriel Trieu be very careful looking at the Zillow value and rent estimates for mobile homes. It's important to look at the actual comps. Find other mobile homes of on similiar plots of land in the immediate area that have sold recently. I start with the last 6 months sales and then expand out the timeframe and/or geographic area a little if it's tough to find something comparable.

I research mobile homes on their own land that will be auctioned off at tax deed sales in Florida and I can't tell you how many times Zillow has said the property and land are worth 3-10x what you might actually be able to sell it for and the rent numbers are double what other similiar properties rent for. The Zillow numbers can be way off due to single family stick built houses, townhouse, etc. being used in the calculation. Do your own comparative market analysis for the value and check rent on sites like padmapper, hotpads and craigslist.

Hope that helps and good luck!

My business partner and I attended one of the local county tax deed sales last month in Florida. We had 3 properties we were interested in, all mobile homes on their own land. I wouldn't say things went well in that we didn't end up as the high bidder on any of the properties, but I would say they went spectacularly as we didn't end up as the high bidder on two of the properties!

The first property we wanted was in a 55+ community and peeking in the window it had newer carpets, nice appliances and was in overall great shape. It came up and I was bidding against one other person all the way to our maximum bid of $11,800 (based on our conservative minimum profit metrics). Then another bidder jumped in and the property went all the way up to $18,000. As a flip that didn't leave enough room for us to be happy but as a rental I think the guy got a good deal.

The second property was on a little dirt side street (or so I thought). It came up and earlier in the day we had decided not to bid because we found out the owner had over $10,000 in back child support and we weren't sure of the rules with child support and tax deed sales. That one went for $1 over the opening bid at around $5,600. Our max bid had been $9,300 before we struck it off our list. After the auction we spoke to a couple of people and found it that child support might not follow the property through the sale. I put in calls to 3 different lawyers to find out the truth and then we spoke to the winning bidder to see if he would be interested in flipping it for a quick buck. He said he'd sell it to us for $9,000, which was below our max bid so I let him know I'm waiting for a call back from my lawyer and got his information. I drove my partner to the property to show him in case that would influence our decision. Turns out I was looking at the wrong property! I thought it was this nice double wide that would have been easy bank but it was a dumpy single wide that would have been better off burned to the ground. My partner said we no longer scout houses on our own - always together. I said we should also take pictures of the house number. Good thing we were worried about the child support. CLOSE CALL! We probably still could have made a little money on this one but it would not have been worth the effort involved. Oh, and none of the 3 lawyers ever called me back.

The third property was in a strange 55+ community where the front half is a park with rental lots and the back half is owned lots. Looked good but had people living in it. The bidding was fast and furious and blew right past our max bid of $6,300. Ended up selling for about $10,000. When the winning bidder said his name I recognized it because someone with that last name owns about 6 houses on the street. Afterwards I spoke to him and it turns out his family owns the rental park side and has been picking up the other lots when they can. On this one the owner had past away so they filed for an abandonment title on the house. Once they owned the house they started renting it out. My thoughts are that the rental income over the couple of years paid for the lot on that day. He said they were going to sell the house for $10,000 - $15,000 and turn the lot into a rental. Smart family but WOW - another CLOSE CALL! We could have bought the lot, stopped over the next weekend and found out he moved the mobile home to another lot in the park since he owned the mobile home.

Free lessons, for sure. But certainly echoes all of the warnings about doing your due dilegence when buying real estate.....or wheelestate.

Congrats @Eric F.

Thanks everbody!

@Jerry K. (at function doesn't seem to be working - sorry), the "learning on the job" aspect of this deal was definitely the real value.

I don't think it changes our tax certificate investing strategy. We don't buy certificates on anything we wouldn't be comfortable owning. You can't plan for everything, but we do a fair amount of due dillegence to protect us the day we buy. Still leaves risk from that point until the deed auction, but at our price points we can afford some risk.

Now flipping mobile homes, that's a different story. My business partner has watched me go through this process, shared in the learnings and we are now looking to expand into this space. Had I gone to the auction and not been tied into the one I just sold, I never would have bought it. So I like to say it as - when I choose the home and it doesn't choose me, I'll pay 2x-3x as much for a home I believe I can sell for 3x-5x as much. With the "higher" value homes like that, we will definitely do a quiet title action, probably use a realtor to sell it, and have it in the LLC, which the one I sold today was not - thus the huge sigh of relief when it sold.

So, I've been investing in tax lien certificates in Florida for 3 years with a business partner through an LLC. We had given up the hopes of actually getting a property as everything either paid off before getting to auction or on the few that made it to auction, they were bid up beyond what we'd be willing to pay. I had some money set aside for my 5 year old daughter and decided last year that 0.5% interest in an online savings account didn't make much sense when I was making 16% or so in tax lien certificates. So I matched the money owed to her with my own money and bought some tax lien certs last May - one which was already seasoned so I paid the other outstanding taxes and county fees to apply for the tax deed.

This June, I received the notice from county clerk's office that the property would be in the August tax deed sale. So I paid the additional fees (recording, publication, serving notice, etc.), assuming that the taxes would get paid.

In July I get a copy of the notice served with the publication listing the sale.

In August, I start to call the county to see if the property is still scheduled for the auction and hasn't been redeemed. I do this right up to the day before and morning of the auction. Sure enough, it hadn't been redeemed. So I'm headed out of the house and grab some money in case I want to bid at the auction. On the way to the courthouse, I drive by the mobile home (with a deed lot) and notice that someone is living there. Oh no I think, I know this is owned by an investor with multiple rental properties, he must have a tenant in this one. With that I decided I wouldn't bid at the auction and just take my 18% interest. Going once.....going twice....going three times.....struck to ME! I always thought I'd be doing cartwheels around the courthouse if this ever happened. Based on the condition of the property and the fact that there is a tenant in it, I dropped my head and shook it back and forth in disbelief. I talk to another guy at the auction that I've seen before and ask him about the property. He said "that piece of junk....I drove buy and there was a big scary looking guy walking around." Great! Just what I wanted to hear.

Turns out he was a nice enough guy and the old owner had him move in to fix the place up. I'm guessing he wanted to sell it before the auction. The tenant stayed an extra month but then moved out as agreed. I could have gotten a writ of assistance from the court to remove him, but with the cost and the fact that it would take about as much time as he asked for, I thought I'd roll the dice and it paid off. I did help him with his deposit on his new place and he said to call him in a month to see how much he could give me back.

54 days after the auction, I finally sold the property today! This is a very low value property and I didn't have much in it, but instead of making 0.5% interest for my daughter in a savings account, I made her 67%. I could have sold it faster and for a higher asking price if I didn't hold a tax deed and I opted not to do a quiet title action on this property. With the price point, I might have broken even on the quiet title fees, but there was no guarantee of that and I would have had to hold onto it for a longer period of time. Not doing the quiet title definitely made it a harder property to sell. I kept lowering the price on Craigslist, Zillow and Postlets until it hit a point that I was getting a lot of calls and people wanting to see it. After the first couple of weeks, I also added the title situation to the advertisements to weed people out who would have no interest in buying a property this way.

Sorry for the long story, but that's about how long my sigh of relief was!

Meeting the potential buyer today. If anyone is familiar with these transactions, please let me know. Thanks!

Selling a mobile home on owned land that I hold a Florida tax deed on. Had a buyer ask me about the mobile home title. At the tax deed sale, you get a tax deed for paying unpaid taxes and fees. The mobile home was taxed as well as the land. Looking back, the last warranty deed did not identify the mobile home on the land but the warranty deed before that did have the year, make and VIN#. The clerk of the court only transders property via the tax deed, they do not go out and collect a mobile home certificate of title to hand off to me. Is this buyer right, does the mobile home need to be re-registered so a certificate of title can be issued? Should this hold up a sale?

Done! Good luck guys.