All Forum Posts by: William Strong

@Jeremy Prunty Do you just approach the companies close to the redemption period and offer to buy them out of their position? 

@Rita Urban Your welcome, I was surprised that no one from bigger pockets was going to attend. So I figured that I would provide my own experience to help others who were curious and so I have something to remember for when the sale comes around again next time. 

Here are my notes.

The sale was held in the board room on the second floor of the administration building. The room was full with around 100 people present, but each person was able to represent up to 20 companies this year, resulting in 1455 total bidders. Even with the 100 different people and each person being able to represent 20 different companies it seemed that there were about 10 different groups of people bidding. The group in front of me consisted of 15 people representing one company and represented 300 out of the 1455 bidders.

Once the sale started the treasurer randomly selected a bidnumber out of a hat to start with, today it was 847. Then in Parcel number order the tax liens were sold in a Round Robbin fashion. We went through the list of Real Propertytaxes, skipping all values under $400 and all Out lots. The first parcel on the list 010320016 was offered to bidder 847. They bought the lien on this property so the next parcel on the list was offered to bidder 848, if bidder 848 passed on the next parcel and bidder 849 bought it, bidder 848 had to wait for the number to come back to them waiting for the next 1454 bidders to either pay the taxes on a parcel or skip. At the end of the sale we made it to number 86, so bidders 87 through 846 never had first chance to purchase taxes on a property. And at the end of the sale many investors left without getting any liens and were out the registration fee, as it is non-refundable. The Real Property sale was over at 10:16 AM.

Most of the investors left at this point with only a couple of groups (about ¼) remaining, to bid on Special Assessments, this list was short and only 3 or 4 were bid on. The remaining investors left but one group and one individual who were interested in parcels under $400. The single investor had interest in 5 parcels and was able to get 2 of them. Once the only the large group remained they submitted their list to the treasurer to purchase the rest of the liens since there was no other competition.

Overall it looks like there is a large amount of competition in Sarpy County for Real Property Tax Liens and going in you need to have done the research to be willing to buy any potential property that comes your way, since once your number gets called it is doubtful that it will get called again unless it is for a parcel no one else wants. 

@Collin Schwartz I did go, I am working on typing up my notes now and should have them put together in a little while. Overall, if you go trying to buy a specific parcel's taxes you will go home empty handed as many investors did today. It is best to do your research on every property you can  afford and hope that you get a chance to bid on it. 

- William Strong

The annual Sarpy County Nebraska Tax Lien Sale is coming up on Monday 6 March 2017. I live in Bellevue and plan on attending to just watch and learn the process in the hopes of participating next year, when I have some money that I wouldn't mind being tied up. Is anyone from the Omaha or Lincoln area  going to attend who has been before?

-William Strong

@David Neese I like the idea of adding more frequent informal meetings. I don't think I could swing too many lunch meetings though, I have limited lunch time. 

I am interested in trying to arrange some more gatherings though either through the REIA or here on BP.

@David Neese I remember Dave mentioning your name as well as Bill S. as being the local contacts for his company. I'll have to remember to go around and meet more people next time or get a I'm on Biggerpockets sign lol. 

I talked with Andy briefly after the meeting to thank him for organizing it, since I know that it can be difficult to manage meetings a presenters like that. 

I have only been to one other REIA meeting that was in South Korea that had presenters usually via Skype so it was good to see how one is put together in the US.

@Lance A White I plan on attending more but with how difficult it was to get this to align with my schedule, it might be nearly impossible to make it out to Lincoln.

@Nathan Eckles Yes it will take working the meeting to find the other investors unless they hold another speed networking session like Nathan mentioned. 

I think I remember a post you had  about organizing a BP meetup in the area, how did that go?

I attended my first Omaha REIA meeting last night 21 Mar 16. After several months of being interested my schedule finally aligned with the meeting's, the presenter was Dave Williams from Investors Choice Funding and covered the basics of his Hard Money lending organization and tips on how to get approved for a hard money loan and how to apply with his company.

The presentation part of the meeting was pretty good, I am not in the market for a Hard Money lender currently but it was good gee-whiz information to have as future Real Estate Investor. The best part was the networking after the presentation I was only able to stay for a short while but I met a couple of investors in the area and had some good conversations with them. 

If any of you other Omaha, Bellevue, Lincoln, Nebraska or Iowa investors have been to the meetings in the past is this how the meetings are usually arranged? Having a person come up and present information on their company or products and then networking?

I know that there is also a Metropolitan Omaha Property Owners Association (MOPOA) group that meets also in the area has anyone been to their meetings?

Omaha REIA - http://www.omaha1reia.com/

Metro Omaha Property Owners - http://www.mopoa.com/

@Account ClosedI agree I've been looking and reading on here about tax liens for over a year and still feel like I don't know enough. If you are looking at investing in Florida there is a lot of information here on BP if you search tax liens you will find lots of threads, since florida has an online process and a statutory minimum of 5% it attracts a lot of investors. I can't name any of the Florida lien investors off the top of my head but if you skim probably 10-20 threads you will get the idea of who is investing in florida and knows what they are doing.