Buying real estate just for delinquent taxes is not as easy as you may think. If you dream of paying a few thousand dollars to buy a nice property, keep dreaming. With the number of real estate investors growing by the day, you can be sure that any real estate property that is sold for back taxes will have many interested parties to buy.
That’s why counties have sales tax. They usually come in the form of tax liens or tax deed auctions. In these sales, the liens or deeds (depending on the state) are sold to the highest bidder. Because there are so many bidders at each auction and they are all generally interested in buying the best properties, you will rarely find a bid at any of these auctions.
This doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from tax delinquent property, you certainly can. It is simply unlikely that you will be doing so in direct competition with large investment firms that will surely be bidding against you on the tax sale. Don’t worry, there is another way.
What you will need to do is reach out to delinquent homeowners before their homes are lost. In many states, this will be after a lien against the property has been sold, or the deed has been sold in a tax sale. As the window of time approaches for these delinquent homeowners to get their property off-tax sale, they will be primed and ready to get rid of their deeds for very little money. Then you just pay the back taxes, and the properties are yours!